.IS   JJIMAN 


i  MEMORIAL  VOLU 


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J.  L.  D. 

i. 

I  rest  my  eyes  upon  these  features  traced 
With  skilful  hand,  and  aid  of  subtle  art, 

And  all  the  charms  his  living  presence  graced 
Come  thronging  to  my  over-burdened  heart. 

The  kindling  eye  where  wit  his  bow  did  bend,  — 
The  face  all  radiant  with  the  soul  within,  — 
How  fraught  with  joy  the  fleeting  hours  have  been, 

When  to  the  flowing  thought,  his  voice  did  lend 
Its  winning  charm  !    'T  is  memory  sweet  with  pain, 
As  I  live  o'er  those  happy  hours  again  ! 

From  youth  to  manhood's  prime,  he  was  my  friend,  — 
My  soul  is  grateful  for  that  blessing  given, 
And  parting  now,  before  the  gate  of  heaven, 

O  God  !  I  bow  to  what  Thy  will  doth  send. 


II. 

He  was  my  friend.    Before  the  closed  door 
I  stand,  slow  to  believe  that  I  no  more 

Shall  press  his  hand.     The  days  drag  on  to  years, 
With  added  sense  of  loss,  and  pain  in  store, 

And  grief  doth  overflow  in  bitter  tears, 
While  steadfast  Faith  her  loving  comfort  gives  : 

The  converse  sweet  with  him  who  is  not  here, 

Is  not  a  memory  dead  upon  his  bier, 
But  in  the  life  beyond  most  surely  lives. 

I  do  not  only  say,  "  he  was  my  friend," 

But  looking  calmly  forward  to  the  end, 
When  I  shall  also  pass  the  opening  door, 
And  grasp  his  hand  with  joy  unknown  before, 

I  wait  in  faith,  and  say,  "  he  is  my  friend." 


ORATIONS  AND  ESSAYS 


WITH 


SELECTED  PARISH  SERMONS. 


BY 


REV.  J.  LEWIS  DIMAN,  D.  D. 

LATE   PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  AND   POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN   BROWN   UNIVERSITY 


A  MEMORIAL  VOLUME. 


BOSTON : 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY. 

NEW  YORK:   II  EAST  SEVENTEENTH  STREET. 

C&e  Rtoerstie  Press,  Cambridge. 

1882. 


Copyright,  1881, 
By  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 


All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


■ 

prihoetg:; 

PREFACE. 


This  volume  has  been  prepared  as  a  memorial  of 
a  scholar  fast  rising  into  a  distinguished  position, 
especially  in  the  department  of  history.  Unfortu- 
nately for  the  world  and  for  his  own  fame  Professor 
Diman  left  behind  him  no  finished  historical  work, 
embodying  the  results  of  his  studies,  and  revealing 
his  merits  as  a  student  and  teacher.  The  volume 
entitled  "  The  Theistic  Argument,"  which  has  been 
received  with  high  and  discriminating  praise,  is  the 
only  volume  he  had  prepared.  This,  a  posthumous 
publication,  able  as  it  is,  does  not  belong  to  his 
chosen  department,  and  it  does  not  show  the  breadth 
nor  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  his  scholar- 
ship. 

In  the  judgment  of  his  friends,  therefore,  there 
was  a  call  for  the  publication  of  some  of  his  occa- 
sional addresses  and  essays  which  disclosed  his  pe- 
culiar gifts,  and  which  to  some  extent  had  already 
secured  the  hearty  commendation  of  cultivated  au- 
diences and  of  the  reading  public.     Fortunately  the 


VI  PREFACE. 

task  of  selection  has  been  made  lighter  by  the  fact, 
that  nearly  all  the  literary  and  historical  addresses 
and  essays  gathered  in  this  volume,  Professor  Diman 
had  himself  designated  as  those  which  he  might 
publish  at  a  future  day.  The  monograph  on  Sir 
Henry  Vane  appears  now  in  print  for  the  first  time. 
The  article  on  "  University  Corporations  "  is  intro- 
duced as  bearing  on  a  subject  likely  to  meet  with 
an  early  discussion  at  the  hands  of  all  those  who 
are  interested  in  the  question  of  university  admin- 
istration and  training. 

To  these  selections  a  few  of  his  sermons  have  been 
added.  To  the  last  he  fulfilled  the  sacred  offices  of 
the  Christian  ministry,  for  which  he  had  the  deep- 
est reverence  and  the  noblest  enthusiasm.  In  this 
relation  of  Christian  teacher  he  was  known  to  many 
persons  who  cherish  a  rare  affection  and  respect  for 
his  memory  as  an  instructive  and  inspiring  preacher. 
It  was  deemed  best  to  select  sermons  most  charac- 
teristic of  his  style  of  thought  on  the  great  themes 
of  Christianity.  The  choice  has  been  made  by  his 
wife,  who  was  most  familiar  with  his  pulpit  teach- 
ings, to  whose  loving  criticism  all  his  writings  were 
habitually  submitted,  and  who  had  especial  interest 
in  his  sermons.  Of  the  seven  thus  chosen,  four 
pertain  to  the  nature  and  work  of  Christ ;  two  to 
the  office  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  while  the  remaining 


PREFACE.  Vii 

one,  entitled  "The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the 
Kingdom  of  Nature,"  is  published  as  the  complement 
to  his  volume  on  Theism.  It  was  the  last  sermon 
he  wrote,  its  aim  being  to  show  that  "  the  concep- 
tions which  give  to  modern  science  its  character- 
istic tone  are  conceptions  in  striking  analogy  with 
the  deeper  teachings  of  the  gospel." 

Some  may  miss  from  the  volume  articles  which 
had  equal  literary  claim  to  a  place  there,  which,  for 
want  of  room  only,  have  been  omitted.  The  aim 
has  been  to  preserve  in  a  connected  form,  and  by 
a  discriminating  selection,  what  will  best  recall  to 
memory  the  comprehensive  and  accurate  scholar- 
ship, the  choice  thought,  the  earnest  and  lofty  spirit 
of  Professor  Diman.  The  only  changes  made,  have 
been  in  the  nature  of  verbal  correction,  slight  as 
well  as  few  and  far  between.  The  portrait  is  from 
a  plate  etched  by  the  skilful  hand  of  Mrs.  Anna 
Lea  Merritt,  whose  name  will  be  recognized  as  that 
of  an  accomplished  American  artist  now  residing  in 
London,  and  whose  personal  acquaintance  with  Pro- 
fessor Diman  lent  enthusiasm  to  the  cunning  of  her 
pencil  in  the  attempt  to  reproduce  that  speaking 
face.  The  sonnets  which  accompany  the  portrait 
have  been  contributed  by  one  of  his  life-long  friends, 
Rowland  Hazard,  of  Peace  Dale,  Rhode  Island. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  wide  circle  of  admirers  and 


viri  PREFACE. 

friends,  who  knew  him  so  well  and  loved  him  so 
deeply,  will  find  in  the  book  a  picture  of  the  man  as 
scholar,  teacher,  and  citizen  which  they  will  delight 
to  recall.  To  that  innermost  circle,  so  centred  in 
him,  so  blessed  in  its  heritage  of  past  communings, 
dating  from  college-days,  when 

"  We  were  nursed  upon  the  self-same  hill," 

a  circle  now  broken,  the  volume  will  be  a  cherished 
reminder  of  golden  hours  gone  by,  alas  !  forever. 

James  O.  Murray. 

Princeton,  New  Jersey, 
October  19,  1 88 1. 


i 

PHI.  .      " 

.HtC, 


THE     :  9GIG. 


■ 
ENTS. 


A   COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE. 
J.  Lewis  Diman.  pack 

Delivered  at  the  Request  of  the  Faculty  of  Brown  Univer- 
sity, in  the  First  Baptist  Meeting-House,  May  17,  1881,  by 
the  Rev.  James  O.  Murray,  D.  D I 

LITERARY   AND    HISTORICAL  ADDRESSES. 

The  Alienation  of  the  Educated  Class  from  Politics. 
An  Oration  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Cam- 
bridge, June  29,  1876 41 

The  Method  of  Academic  Culture. 

An  Address  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Am- 
herst College,  July  6,  1869 76 

Address. 

At  the  Unveiling  of  the  Monument  to  Roger  Williams  in 

the  City  of  Providence,  October  16,  1877 108 

The  Settlement  of  Mount  Hope. 

An  Address  at  the  Two  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Set- 
tlement of  the  Town  of  Bristol,  R.  I.,  delivered  September 
24,  1880 139 

Sir  Henry  Vane. 

An  Historical  Address  delivered  before  the  Long  Island 
Historical  Society,  Brooklyn,  March  26,  1878 168 


x  CONTENTS. 

REVIEWS. 

PAGE 

Religion  in  America,  1776-1876 201 

University  Corporations 265 

SERMONS. 

The  Son  of  Man 299 

Christ,  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life 311 

Christ,  the  Bread  of  Life 328 

Christ  in  the  Power  of  his  Resurrection 344 

The  Holy  Spirit,  the  Guide  to  Truth 360 

The  Baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost 378 

The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the  Kingdom  of  Nature  397 


COMMEMORATIVE    DISCOURSE, 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  REQUEST  OF  THE  FACULTY  OF 

BROWN  UNIVERSITY,  IN  THE    FIRST   BAPTIST 

MEETING-HOUSE,  MAY  17,  1881, 

BY 

THE   REV.   JAMES   O.    MURRAY,    D.  D. 


J.   LEWIS    DIMAN. 

A   COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE,   BY   THE   REV. 
JAMES   O.   MURRAY,   D.  D. 


As  I  rise  to  fulfill  this  sacred  and  responsible 
duty,  I  recall  with  mournful  distinctness  the  simi- 
lar service  rendered  by  Professor  Diman  when  the 
university  was  so  deeply  bereft  in  the  loss  of  Pro- 
fessor Dunn.  Both  were  stricken  down  by  the  same 
mortal  disease,  and  vanished  from  our  sight  with 
startling  suddenness.  Both  were  "  dead  ere  their 
prime,"  and  the  opening  words  of  that  beautiful  ad- 
dress have  now  a  double  impressiveness.  "  We 
bring  to  these  services,"  Professor  Diman  then  said, 
"  a  bitter  sorrow.  There  have  been  others  taken 
from  us  whose  names  were  indissolubly  connected 
with  our  history  ;  but  they  had  long  relinquished 
the  active  labors  of  instruction,  or  crowned  with 
years  had  come  to  the  grave  in  the  calm  decay  of 
their  autumnal  season.  For  the  first  time  [alas  !  it 
is  no  longer  the  first]  one  of  our  immediate  number 
has  been  removed ;  one  who  had  hardly  reached  the 
bright  summer  of  his  career  ;  whose  auspicious  prime 
held  out  the  flattering  promise  that  his  past  inesti- 
mable years  were  only  the  pledge  of  a  still  ampler 
usefulness." 

How  aptly  did   these    words,  as  an  unconscious 


4  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

prophecy,  anticipate  his  own  career.  Of  whom 
could  it  more  truly  or  with  sadder  pathos  be  said 
that  "  his  past  inestimable  years  were  only  the  pledge 
of  a  still  ampler  usefulness."  We  cannot  bury  such 
a  man  in  utter  silence.  We  are  moved  to  such 
commemoration  as  this  service  contemplates  by  all 
the  better  instincts  of  our  nature.  Aside  from  the 
fact  that  it  fastens  thought  on  what  is  admirable  in 
character  and  achievement,  is  it  not  well,  while  we 
can  gain  the  ear  of  men,  to  lift  high  and  clear  be- 
fore the  community  the  ineffable  superiority  of  the 
calling  which,  while  relinquishing  the  glittering 
prizes  of  life,  seeks  and  finds  in  the  pursuit  of  truth, 
in  the  vocation  of  the  Christian  scholar,  in  the  noble 
offices  of  the  teacher,  the  end  and  the  reward  of 
living  ?  For  some  men,  indeed,  the  obligation  to 
institute  such  a  commemoration  has  peculiar  force. 
If  the  work  of  life  has  been  so  fully  wrought  out  as 
to  have  expressed  itself  in  something  by  its  own 
nature  monumental,  a  great  discovery,  an  illustrious 
public  service,  an  immortal  book  which  gathers  up 
into  itself  the  personality,  suggesting  and  consecrat- 
ing the  fame,  perhaps  there  were  less  need  of  the 
commemorating  word.  But  when  the  life  of  a  rare 
and  well  furnished  scholar  has  been  mainly  prepara- 
tion, when  the  fruits  of  scholarship  lie  scattered 
here  and  there  like  sheaves  on  a  harvest  field,  and 
need  to  be  gathered  up ;  when,  unless  this  is  at- 
tempted, that  career  will  seem  fragmentary,  incom- 
plete, which  else  would  show  symmetry  and  fullness, 
then  the  duty  is  unquestionable. 

Nor  is  this  occasion  simply  academic.  How  wide- 
spreading  are  the  interests,  any  worthy  commem- 
oration of  Professor  Diman  should  be  fashioned  to 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  5 

meet !  If  our  university  is  chief  mourner,  let  us  not 
forget  that  in  the  grief  which  passing  months  have 
made  only  sorer,  the  city,  nay  the  State  itself,  nay 
the  brotherhood  of  American  sholarship,  are,  if  si- 
lent, yet  bowed  participants.  The  life  and  work  of 
Professor  Diman  touched  the  life  of  the  communitv 
where  he  lived  at  so  many  points,  nay  had  flung 
their  attractive  influences  into  so  many  other  aca- 
demic centres,  that  the  occasion  to-day  can  be  rightly 
viewed  only  as  the  expression  of  a  grief  uncommon 
for  the  breadth  of  its  sphere  as  well  as  the  depth  of 
its  sources. 

Jeremiah  Lewis  Diman  was  born  in  Bristol,  R.  I., 
May  1,  1831.  There  his  boyhood  was  passed.  He 
grew  up  an  ingenuous,  pure,  attractive  lad,  fond  of 
out-door  sports,  yet  not  excelling  in  them  nor  in 
studies.  He  was  happily  destitute  of  everything 
like  precocity  —  precocious  sainthood  or  precocious 
intelligence.  His  father,  Governor  Byron  Diman, 
was  a  man  of  decided  literary  taste  —  a  diligent 
reader  of  good  books,  especially  of  history,  "  well 
versed  in  New  England  history,  and  the  history  of 
the  mother  country,"  possessing  also,  it  is  said,  a 
"  very  exact  knowledge  of  English  politics."  Those 
who  have  shared  his  genial  hospitality  will  readily 
recall  that  open  fire  with  its  blazing  logs,  and  the 
discussions  which  went  on  there  concerning  history, 
or  literature,  or  politics,  in  which  his  son  Lewis 
was  always  a  ready  and  eager  listener  or  disputant. 
In  the  dedicatory  address  at  the  opening  of  the 
Rogers  Free  Library,  Professor  Diman,  alluding  to 
the  townsman  whose  name  the  library  bears,  said  : 
"  Among  the  most  cherished  impressions  of  my  own 
boyhood  was  that   left   by  my  intercourse  with   one 


6  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

whose  acquaintance  with  the  important  movements 
of  his  time  was  so  extensive  and  minute,  and  whose 
conversation  was  always  so  instructive  and  so  in- 
cisive. I  acknowledge  with  gratitude  the  vigorous 
intellectual  impulse  which,  as  a  youth,  I  derived 
from  his  society."  It  was,  in  fact,  a  marked  char- 
acteristic of  his  boyhood  —  this  susceptibility  to  in- 
tellectual impulse  from  older  persons.  And,  as  in- 
dicating the  bent  in  him  for  the  later  studies  in 
which  he  distinguished  himself,  it  should  be  stated 
that  during  his  boyhood  he  contributed  a  series  of 
papers  to  the  village  journal  on  matters  of  local  his- 
tory, gathering  his  material  by  conversation  with  the 
old  inhabitants,  or  by  industrious  search  of  the  town 
records. 

He  was  prepared  for  college  by  the  Rev.  James 
N.  Sykes,  and  entered  Brown  University  at  Com- 
mencement, 1847.  His  career  in  college  was  marked 
by  steady  growth  of  intellectual  power  rather  than 
by  extraordinary  brilliancy  of  scholarship.  He  en- 
joyed classical  studies  —  developed  some  aptitude  in 
them,  but  when  the  later  years  of  the  curriculum 
were  reached,  it  was  evident  that  in  literary  or  his- 
torical and  philosophical  pursuits  his  tastes  and  abil- 
ities would,  in  after  life,  assert  themselves.  The 
literary  societies  then  existing,  unhappily  now  ex- 
tinct, afforded  opportunity  for  cultivating  power  in 
debate.  He  was  a  very  active  member  of  the  United 
Brothers,  and  there  much  of  his  fine-  gift  in  extem- 
poraneous speech  was  brought  out.  In  short,  it 
may  be  said,  the  course  of  study,  the  instructors 
who  filled  the  several  chairs,  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  college,  were  such  as  to  bring  out  in  him  the 
best  elements  of  his  intellectual  nature.     His  train- 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  J 

ing  here  was  a  genuine  educing  of  native  powers, 
singularly  rich.  He  always  gratefully  acknowledged 
this  indebtedness  to  his  teachers,  deeming  no  man 
himself  fit  to  teach  who  does  not  duly  appreciate  his 
debt  to  early  instructors.  He  was  graduated  in  the 
year  185 1,  pronouncing  at  Commencement  the  class- 
ical oration.  It  might  have  been  difficult,  at  the 
close  of  his  college  course,  to  predict  that  for  which 
he  had  the  greatest  gift,  literature  or  history.  But 
he  did  not  graduate  without  leaving  behind  him  the 
distinct  impression  that  to  whichever  sphere  he  be- 
took himself  he  would  bring  honor. 

During  his  college  course  he  became  a  member 
of  the  Congregational  Church  in  Bristol,  and  chose 
the  Christian  ministry  as  his  vocation  in  life.  There 
is  one  passage  in  his  fine  notice  of  Dr.  Wayland, 
published  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  January, 
1868,  which  must  be  a  chapter  from  his  own  expe- 
rience :  — 

"  In  the  most  difficult  task  of  dealing  with  young  men 
at  the  crisis  of  their  spiritual  history,  Dr.  Wayland  was 
unsurpassed.  How  wise  and  tender  his  counsels  at  such 
a  time  !  How  many  who  have  timidly  stolen  to  his  study 
door,  their  souls  burdened  with  strange  thoughts  and  be- 
wildered with  unaccustomed  questionings,  remember  with 
what  instant  appreciation  of  their  errand  the  green  shade 
was  lifted  from  the  eye,  the  volume  thrown  aside,  and 
with  what  genuine  hearty  interest  that  whole  countenance 
would  beam.  At  such  an  interview  he  would  often  read 
the  parable  of  the  returning  prodigal,  and  who  that  heard 
can  ever  forget  the  pathos  with  which  he  would  dwell 
upon  the  words." 

The  religious  life  thus  begun  was  through  all  sub« 
sequent  years  a  moulding  force  in  his  character  and 


8  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

work.  He  was  reserved  by  nature,  and  about  his 
Christian  life  this  natural  reserve  asserted  itself  per- 
haps too  strongly.  But  those  who  were  on  any 
footing  of  intimacy  with  him  knew  what  spiritual 
forces  his  faith  in  Christ  was  constantly  exerting  on 
his  nature,  and  how  genuine  and  simple-hearted  that 
religious  life  was. 

Wisely,  he  determined  to  spend  a  year  in  general 
study  before  entering  on  professional  studies  in  An- 
dover.  The  year  1851-52  was  accordingly  spent 
with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thayer,  in  Newport,  R.  I.  Un- 
der his  superintendence,  studies  in  the  History  of 
Philosophy,  Theology,  and  the  Classics,  were  pur- 
sued. It  was  a  year  of  fertility  in  his  intellectual 
development.  When  at  its  close  he  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Junior  Class  in  Andover  Theological 
Seminary,  it  was  evident  that  the  quiet  earnestness 
which  had  marked  his  college  course  had  been  deep- 
ened, and  that  in  mental  work  he  had  been  gaining 
breadth,  as  well  as  high  stimulus.  After  spending 
two  years  in  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Andover, 
he  decided  to  pursue  a  course  of  study  in  German 
Universities,  and  went  abroad  for  this  purpose  in 
August,  1854.  At  Halle,  he  studied  Philosophy, 
chiefly  Kant,  attending  lectures  on  the  History  of 
Philosophy,  Dogmatik,  Encyclopedic,  and  Old  Tes- 
tament—  coming  under  the  influence  of  such  teach- 
ers as  Erdmann,  Julius  Muller,  Tholuck,  and  Rod- 
iger.  He  went  much  among  the  Professors  socially, 
was  ever  a  welcome  visitor  at  their  houses.  The 
spring  vacation  was  passed  in  Munich,  studying  art, 
and  the  summer  semester  at  Heidelberg.  Here  his 
studies  were  divided  between  Rothe,  on  Dogmatik 
and  Ethics,  and  the  philosophy  of  Fichte  and  Schel- 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  9 

ling.  But  what  perhaps,  marked  most  decisively  this 
portion  of  his  residence  abroad,  was  his  acquaintance 
and  intercourse  with  Baron  Bunsen  at  Charlotten- 
berg,  whither  the  great  scholar  and  diplomatist 
had  returned  from  the  Court  of  St.  James.  Pro- 
fessor Diman  was  a  frequent  and  delighted  visitor 
at  Baron  Bunsen's  villa,  and  in  "its  terraced  and 
well-shaded  garden  "  on  many  a  pleasant  summer 
afternoon  he  spent  his  time  in  conversation  with 
Bunsen.  Memorable  hours  they  must  have  been, 
which  left  impressions  like  these  upon  this  favorite 
and  favored  young  student.  Of  these  conversations 
he  says  himself  :  "  The  fire  and  eloquence  with 
which  he  would  enter  at  once  on  some  chance  topic 
suggested  by  a  visitor,  some  question,  perhaps,  of 
Biblical  interpretation  or  ecclesiastical  antiquities, 
the  boundless  erudition  with  which  he  would  illus- 
trate his  arguments,  the  facility  with  which  he 
would  quote  the  various  readings  of  some  disputed 
text,  the  earnestness  with  which  he  would  contro- 
vert any  opposing  views,  rendered  intercourse  with 
him  as  delightful  as  it  was  instructive."  What 
seems  to  have  kindled  Professor  Diman's  warmest 
admiration  for  Bunsen  was  the  latter's  cherished 
view  that  "  all  history  is  instinct  with  a  divine  pres- 
ence, and  faith  in  the  possibility  of  demonstrating  a 
speculative  basis  for  the  soul's  intuitive  perceptions, 
the  inspiring  motive  of  his  profoundest  study."  In 
that  eloquent  tribute  to  him  in  the  discourse  on 
the  "  Historical  Basis  of  Belief,"  specially  in  refer- 
ence to  Bunsen's  work,  "  God  in  History,"  Professor 
Diman  remarks  that  he  showed  "  all  the  striking  ex- 
cellences and  all  the  striking  defects  of  German 
thought;  but  the  most  marked  thing,  after  all,  about 


IO  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

him  was  the  manner  in  which  his  daring  speculation 
was  tempered  by  his  historic  spirit."  And  when 
we  read  such  words  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  those  delightful  summer  afternoons 
in  the  garden  at  Charlottenberg,  the  Neckar  flow- 
ing at  his  feet,  the  fine  old  castle  crowning  the 
heights  across  the  river  and  in  full  view,  had  no  in- 
decisive influence  in  shaping  the  future  career  of 
Professor  Diman  as  a  historical  student  and  teacher. 
His  studies  in  German  Universities  were  completed 
at  Berlin.  There  he  pursued  a  course  in  the  Hege- 
lian Philosophy.  Besides  hearing  lectures  from 
Nitsch  on  Old  Testament  Theology,  from  Twesten 
on  Dogmatic,  from  Trendelenburg  on  Psychology  and 
Logic,  he  continued  his  art-studies.  From  this  sur- 
vey it  will  be  seen  how  broad  and  how  rich  was  the 
culture  he  sought  in  foreign  universities.  Return- 
ing home  in  the  spring  of  1856,  he  again  resumed 
his  studies  at  Andover,  was  graduated  from  that 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  ensuing  summer,  and 
licensed  to  preach  by  the  Essex  South  Association 
at  Salem,  Mass.  He  at  once  drew  attention  as  a 
preacher.  His  fine  presence,  his  attractive  speech, 
his  simple,  clear,  choice  style,  his  fresh  treatment  of 
pulpit  themes,  his  fondness  for  the  more  spiritual 
elements  of  pulpit  teaching,  made  him  a  preacher 
sought  after  from  the  outset.  At  this  juncture  of 
his  life  a  great  sorrow  overwhelmed  him.  It  was  a 
bereavement  which  suddenly  dashed  the  hopes  and 
loves  of  years.  The  sacred  grief  was  borne  by  him 
silently,  submissively,  manfully.  While  its  shadows 
were  upon  him,  he  received  a  call  to  the  First  Con- 
gregational Church  in  Fall  River,  Mass.  This  call 
was  accepted,   and   there    he  was  ordained  and  in- 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  II 

stalled  in  the  autumn  of  1856.  This  ministry  to  a 
united  and  devoted  people  continued  until  February, 
i860,  when  he  received  and  accepted  a  call  to  the 
Harvard  Congregational  Church,  Brookline,  Mass. 
In  the  spring  of  that  year  he  was  united  in  marriage 
with  Miss  Emma  Stimson,  of  Providence,  and  that 
home  was  begun,  which,  during  all  these  years,  has 
been  to  him  such  a  joy  and  rest,  and,  to  those  who 
have  known  its  hospitality,  so  attractive.  At  Brook- 
line,  Mass.,  he  labored  for  four  years,  until  the  spring 
of  1864,  when  he  resigned  his  pastoral  charge  to  ac- 
cept the  chair  of  History  and  Political  Economy  in 
Brown  University.  His  call  here  took  him  by  sur- 
prise. He  had  devoted  himself  to  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry,  and  while  he  was  a  pastor,  was 
a  pastor  with  his  whole  heart.  He  loved,  as  he 
reverenced,  his  calling.  The  old-fashioned  New 
England  clergy  were  men  for  whom  he  had  a  special 
veneration.  "Who,"  he  said  in  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
address  at  Harvard  College,  "  but  looks  back  with 
veneration  to  the  New  England  ministers  of  the 
olden  time,  like  Ward,  of  Ipswich,  whose  vigorous 
and  well  furnished  intellect  could  turn  from  the 
composition  of  sermons  to  the  drawing  up  of  a 
'  Body  of  Liberties  ; '  like  many  of  a  later  day,  who, 
in  the  genuine  tradition  of  the  fathers,  refused  to 
call  any  human  duties  common  or  unclean."  What 
mainly  drew  him  to  these  ministers  in  so  apprecia- 
tive admiration,  was  the  way  in  which  they  always 
"  magnified  their  office."  He  gave  himself  wholly 
to  his  work.  All  his  study  —  all  his  writing  were 
in  its  direct  line.  It  was  no  service  divided  be- 
tween literature  and  the  altar  at  which  he  served. 
"The  thing  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  he  did  noth. 


12  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

ing  with,"  as  Carlyle  finely  says  of  his  father.  Still, 
in  his  ministry,  as  in  everything  else,  he  had  his 
own  views  as  to  parish  work  and  pulpit  teaching, 
which  were  in  some  respects  at  war  with  the  ac- 
cepted views  about  him.  What  he  believed  in,  and 
what  he  used,  as  the  "means  of  grace,"  were  the 
word  of  God  and  the  sacraments.  He  distrusted 
"  revivals  "  as  an  agency  or  method  of  church  life, 
through  reliance  on  and  use  of  which  the  church  is 
to  grow.  He  was  convinced  that  some  modern  ex- 
pedients for  making  religion  attractive  to  the  masses 
ended  in  vulgarizing  religion.  He  turned  with  aver- 
sion from  a  travesty  of  sacred  hymnology,  which  has 
usurped  the  place  of  the  fine,  strong,  genuine  old 
Christian  lyrics,  sung  by  saints  of  all  ages  and  com- 
munions. It  is  quite  possible  that  he  failed  in  doing 
justice  to  some  aspects  of  modern  Christian  effort. 
But  within  the  circle  of  parish  duty,  as  he  defined 
it  to  himself,  he  certainly  fulfilled  a  noble  ministry. 
Sympathetic  and  tender  in  sorrow,  patient  and  wise 
with  the  troubled  and  the  doubting,  firm  and  search- 
ing with  the  wandering,  attractive  to  children,  his 
memory  as  a  Christian  pastor  is  still  warmly  cherished 
in  both  parishes  he  served.  Toward  what  is  called 
"  pulpit  oratory"  he  never  aspired.  Preaching  with 
him  meant  teaching.  He  paid  his  hearers  the  tribute 
of  believing  that  they  came  to  be  instructed  "in  things 
pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God."  As  a  preacher 
to  thoughtful,  cultivated  persons  he  was  exception- 
ally gifted.  His  discourse  was  always  positive  in  the 
direction  his  thoughts  took.  His  unaffected,  digni- 
fied manner,  his  simple,  lucid,  always  fresh,  presen- 
tation of  the  truth,  the  large  infusion  of  what  may 
be  called  the  element  of  a  personal  and  living  Christ, 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  1 3 

into  his  sermons,  his  deeply  reverential,  yet  rich,  de- 
votions made  him  welcome  in  the  pulpits  of  this 
city  and  other  cities.  The  one  truth  of  Christianity 
which  he  emphasized  more  than  any  other  was  that 
view  of  Christ  as  the  life  of  men  —  which  is  found 
eminently  in  St.  John  and  also  in  St.  Paul,  and 
which  appealed  to  Professor  Diman  on  its  mystical 
as  well  as  its  positive  side.  He  regarded  as  the 
truly  practical  sermon  —  not  simply  that  which  in- 
culcates some  moral  obligation  or  religious  duty, 
but,  far  more,  the  principles  of  Christianity  so  un- 
folded as  to  bring  into  the  common  daily  life  of  men 
and  women  the  sanctifying  influences  of  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus.  Most  of  the  sermons  he  wrote  are 
cast  in  this  mould.  They  are  in  many  respects  like 
the  parish  sermons  of  Augustus  Hare,  or  those  of 
Newman,  alike  not  less  in  the  singular  purity  and 
finish  of  the  style  than  in  their  manner  of  discuss- 
ing religious  themes.  Anything  like  a  formal  out- 
line of  Professor  Diman's  theological  views  will  not 
on  this  occasion  be  expected  from  me.  He  had  an 
intense  dislike  for  the  glib  use  of  phrases  used  too 
often  as  the  catch-words  of  orthodoxy.  But  that 
his  sympathies  were  with  the  historical  faith  of  the 
church  is  undoubtedly  true.  He  loved  to  quote 
Bishop  Ken's  last  words,  "  I  die  in  the  faith  of  the 
Catholic  Church  before  its  division  into  east  and 
west."  I  may  be  pardoned  for  quoting  at  some  length 
a  passage  from  his  discourse  on  the"  Historical  Basis 
of  Belief,"  because  it  shows  where  his  theological 
sympathies  were  placed,  and  also  how  he  approached 
theology  on  its  historical  side. 

"  Christianity,  taken  as  a  whole,  may  be  justly  termed 
the  most  historical  of  all  religions  —  not  in  the  sense 


14  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

simply  that  it  rests  on  the  best  authenticated  basis  of  his 
toric  fact,  but  for  the  profounder  reason  that  only  in  its 
continuous  and  vital  connection  with  history  can   it  be 
completely  manifested.     In  its  true  aspect  it  is  not  a  fact, 
but  a  power  ;  not  one  event,  but  an  increasing  purpose 
that  runs  through  the  ages.     This  purpose  is  fulfilled,  not 
in  effecting  individual  redemption,  but  in  building  up  a 
spiritual  kingdom.     The  gospel  swells  with  this  imperial 
theme.     Its  closing  chapters  hail  as  the  final  consumma- 
tion the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  with  its  streets  of  jasper  and 
sapphire.     While  the  incarnation  must  remain  the  central 
truth  of  Christianity,  the  eternal  fount  whence  all  streams 
of  living  waters  flow,  yet  the  full  purpose  for  which  the 
Word  was  made  flesh  cannot   be  understood,  except  in 
connection  with  that  of  which  it  is  represented  as  the  es- 
sential ground  —  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     The  con- 
tinued indwelling  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  regenerate  hu- 
manity is  the  living  fact  on  which  the  church  is  built.    As 
a  consequence  of  this  indwelling,  the  children  of  the  true 
Israel    are   not    simply   converted    individuals ;   they  are 
members  of  one  Body,  branches  of  one  Vine.     It  is  their 
ineffable  calling  to  be  built  up  a  spiritual  temple,  all  the 
parts  of  which,  fashioned  by  Wisdom  herself,  shall  be  fitly 
framed  together.     This  organic  oneness  of  spiritual  life, 
this  corporate  identity  of  the  new  creation,  is  implied  in 
all  apostolic  teaching.     It  is  the  inexorable  condition  of 
sound  spiritual  growth.     The  last  prayer  of  our  Lord  for 
his  disciples',  foreboding,  from  the  darkness  of  his  most 
bitter  anguish,  the  dark  future  of  the  church  which  he  pur- 
chased with  his  own  blood,  was  that  they  might  be  one 
in  that  transcendent  sense  in  which  He  was  one  with  the 
Father.      The    emphasis  with  which    these   words   were 
charged  makes  it  impossible  for  language  to   overstate 
the  organic  nature  of  spiritual  life  ;  for  what  more  sub- 
stantial unity  can  be  conceived  than  that  of  the  Father 
and  Son  ? " 


A  COMMEMORA  TIVE  DISCOURSE.  I  5 

In  the  spring  of  1864,  as  I  have  said,  Professor  Di- 
man  was  invited  to  succeed  Professor  Gammell  in  the 
chair  of  History  and  Political  Economy.  He  was  its 
first  occupant,  and  had  filled  it  with  so  signal  a  suc- 
cess that  his  resignation  caused  the  deepest  regret 
to  all  friends  of  the  University.  He  nominated  as 
his  successor  Professor  Diman,  whose  rare  abilities 
and  aptness  for  such  a  post  he  had  discovered  while 
a  student  under  him.  And  though  the  call  here  was 
promptly  accepted,  yet  it  was  a  genuine  and  hearty 
grief  to  Professor  Diman  to  give  up  the  position  of 
religious  teacher  and  pastor.  He  entered  on  his  work 
in  the  college  in  the  autumn  of  1864.  While  it  was  at 
once  evident  that  he  would  make  a  successful  teacher 
in  the  department  of  History,  yet  the  brilliant  suc- 
cess of  his  later  years  was  the  product  of  severe  and 
unremitting  study.  His  laborious  years  in  German 
universities  laid  its  foundation.  His  ideal  was  high, 
his  acquaintance  with  modern  historical  scholarship 
full,  and  he  brought  to  his  work  mental  capabilities 
and  endowments  for  historical  study.  He  entered 
with  all  his  heart  into  that  deeper  and  truer  concep- 
tion of  history  which  has  found  voice  in  the  preface 
to  Greene's  "Short  History  of  the  English  People." 
He  never  sunk  his  idea  of  historical  development 
into  a  "drum  and  trumpet  history."  He  recognized 
the  truth,  and  it  shaped  all  his  historical  teaching, 
that  "  war  after  all  has  played  a  small  part  in  the 
real  story  of  European  nations,  and  in  that  of  Eng- 
land a  smaller  part  than  in  any  other."  He  delighted 
to  find  in  art  and  architecture  and  literature,  if  not 
the  highest,  yet  real  exponents  of  national  greatness. 
Here  his  art-studies  in  Munich  and  Berlin  were  of 
excellent  service  to  him.     He  made  the  history  of 


1 6  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

the  past  vital  with  undying  interest.  He  lighted  it 
up  with  every  humane  and  choice  culture.  Above 
all,  he  recognized  in  it  a  Divine  order  ;  he  held  that 
Jonathan  Edwards,  in  his  "  History  of  Redemption," 
had  struck  out  the  true  path  in  all  deepest  historical 
investigation.  "Revelation,"  he  said  in  his  address 
at  Amherst,  "has  given  history  a  meaning  which  not 
even  Thucydides  conceived.  We  tread  the  shores 
of  a  new  world  when  we  turn  from  the  gloomy  pages 
of  Tacitus  to  the  triumphant  visions  of  Augustine." 
He  admired  Bunsen  because  "  Bunsen  zealously 
charged  himself  with  the  solution  of  the  problem  — 
that  Leibnitz  first  proposed — of  establishing  the 
presence  of  a  Divine  order  in  the  seeming  conflict  of 
the  ages."  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Gammell  for 
a  statement  of  the  general  plan  of  Professor  Diman's 
historical  course. 

"  It  began  with  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  traced  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  modern  civiliza- 
tion, setting  forth  the  elements  and  agencies  of  this  civil- 
ization, as  they  were  derived  from  the  civilizations  of  an- 
tiquity, from  the  customs  and  institutions  of  the  barbarian 
races  that  overthrew  the  empire,  from  the  spirit  and  insti- 
tutions of  the  Christian  church,  and  showing  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  brought  together  in  the  different  parts 
of  Europe,  and  in  which  they  were  developed  into  the 
institutions  of  modern  society.  ...  As  the  great  institu- 
tions of  the  Middle  Ages  assumed  their  definite  propor- 
tions, he  would  treat  them  specifically  and  trace  the  in- 
fluence which  each  exerted  on  the  progress  of  civilization, 
and  on  the  fortunes  of  the  countries  which  it  may  have 
specially  controlled." 

The  institutions  of  the  English  races  held,  how- 
ever, the  foremost  place  in  his  discussions,  and  were 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  I J 

throughout  contrasted  with  those  of  Europe.  His 
thoroughness  of  treatment  was  shown  in  the  pains 
he  took  to  trace  our  modern  institutions  to  their 
origin,  and  it  was  his  delight  to  point  out  how  little 
of  novelty  there  is  in  the  modes  through  which  soci- 
ety is  administered.  During  the  later  years  of  his 
professorship  he  had  made  special  studies  in  the  con- 
stitutional history  of  the  United  States,  including 
the  nature  and  peculiar  characteristics  of  our  govern- 
ment. The  whole  course  in  History  was  closed  by 
a  brief  series  of  lectures  on  International  Law.  For 
this  department  of  his  work  he  had  less  fondness  than 
for  History  proper.  But  in  Political  Economy  his 
interest  was  deep,  his  studies  thorough,  and  the  stu- 
dents all  looked  forward  eagerly  to  the  Junior  year, 
when  they  passed  under  his  instruction  in  Political 
Economy,  and  though  this  study  was  an  elective,  it 
has  from  the  first  been  customary  for  the  class  to 
enter  that  department  as  a  body.  When  Professor 
Diman  first  entered  on  his  professorship  his  instruc- 
tions were  largely  connected  with  text-books,  but  he 
at  length  threw  them  aside,  teaching  almost  wholly 
by  lectures.  He  was  careful,  however,  not  to  repeat 
himself.  His  lectures  were  always  reenforced  and 
enriched  by  his  latest  studies.  They  varied  from  year 
to  year,  and  the  fault  of  monotony  or  dullness  was 
never  from  the  outset  laid  to  his  charge.  A  success- 
ful professorship  of  History  must,  beside  aptness  in 
teaching,  at  least  embody  the  following  elements  : 
careful  and  exhaustive  investigation  of  sources,  the 
power  of  sound  generalization,  and  facility  in  group- 
ing and  classifying  events.  In  each  of  these  Profes- 
sor Diman  attained  high  success.  From  close  and 
full  investigations  he  made  his  generalizations.     He 


1 8  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

was  in  the  opposition,  by  the  bent  of  his  mind.  Pre- 
conceived opinions  went  for  little,  perhaps  for  too 
little,  with  him.  But  his  generalizations  were  never 
hasty  nor  yet  crude,  and  they  were  always  honest 
as  they  were  always  fearless.  And  in  what  may 
be  called  the  perspective  in  historical  teaching  he 
showed  excellent  judgment,  fastening  the  attention 
of  his  students  on  what  was  really  prominent,  deter- 
mining, and  lasting  in  all  historic  movements.  The 
longer  he  taught  the  more  he  grew  inclined  to  the 
detailed  study  of  great  men,  as  well  as  great  events. 
The  men  were  the  real  events.  What  Dean  Stanley 
has  said  of  this  characteristic  as  applied  to  the  his- 
tory of  church  doctrine,  applies  with  full  force  to 
the  sphere  of  secular  history  :  "  Look  at  Augustini- 
anism  as  it  arose  in  the  mind  of  Augustine  ;  at  Lu- 
theranism  as  it  was  conceived  by  Luther  ;  at  Wesley- 
anism  as  it  was  set  forth  by  Wesley.  It  will  cease 
to  be  a  phantom,  it  will  speak  to  us  as  a  man  ;  if  it 
is  an  enemy  we  shall  slay  it  more  easily  ;  if  a  friend 
we  shall  embrace  it  more  warmly." 

In  the  class-room  Professor  Diman  had  some 
unique  qualities  as  a  lecturer.  He  had  rare  gifts 
in  inspiring  enthusiasm  for  historical  study  among 
his  pupils,  partly  '  by  the  influence  of  his  own 
thorough  and  attractive  culture,  still  more  by  his 
method  of  dealing  with  subjects.  "  I  share  to  the 
full,"  he  said  in  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at 
Amherst  College,  "  Lessing's  contempt  for  what  he 
calls  professoring.  Unless  mind  touches  mind 
there  will  be  no  heat.  We  make  much  of  our  im- 
proved methods  and  text-books  ;  but  after  all  they 
matter  less  than  we  suppose.  A  genial,  opulent, 
overflowing  soul  is  the  secret  of  success  in   teach- 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  1 9 

ing.  To  have  read  Euripides  with  Milton  were  bet- 
ter than  having  the  latest  critical  edition.  Not  the 
methods  but  the  men  gave  Rugby  and  Soreze  their 
fame."  "The  mere  matter  of  Professor  Diman's 
lectures,"  writes  one  of  his  pupils  to  me,  "  excellent 
as  they  were  in  comprehension  of  the  subjects,  ac- 
curacy of  analysis  and  clearness  of  statement,  I 
would  not  place  beside  his  first  three  bounties  to 
the  student  of  history,  interest  in  the  subject,  intro- 
duction to  the  material,  and  acquaintance  with  the 
method." 

Joined  with  this  was  a  happy  gift  of  illustration. 
In  History,  by  pithy  anecdote  ;  in  Political  Economy, 
by  imaginary  incident ;  in  both,  by  sharp  contrast, 
by  keen-edged  criticism,  he  made  his  abstract  dis- 
cussions luminous.  The  ease  with  which  he  did  it 
all  made  much  of  its  charm.  His  wit,  so  penetrat- 
ing and  so  bright,  was  here  employed,  sometimes 
to  dangerous  extremes.  But  his  classes  were  al- 
ways on  the  alert.  Their  minds  were  electrified  by 
the  sharp,  strong  sentences  which  sometimes  flashed 
through  the  lecture  room.  His  suggestiveness  as  a 
teacher  was  yet  another  faculty  he  possessed  in  a 
striking  degree.  Whatever  he  treated  was  so  han- 
dled as  to  open  invitingly  various  lines  for  thought. 
It  was  his  habit  to  unfold  at  length  the  literature  of 
the  subject  he  was  discussing,  and  he  left  on  his 
classes  an  abiding  impression  that  the  class-room 
was  the  beginning,  not  the  end  of  the  matter  ;  that 
the  real  work  was  to  discriminate  between  the  vary- 
ing values  of  serviceable  authorities,  "  and  to  get 
their  knowledge  at  first  hand  rather  than  through 
the  filter  of  another's  mind." 

It  was  undoubtedly  the  case  sometimes  that  he 


20  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

shocked  the  preconceived  notions  of  a  portion  of 
the  students  under  him,  as  when  he  gave  "  so  strik- 
ing prominence  to  the  inconsistencies  of  Protestant 
belief,"  and  in  contrast  exalted  "  Catholic  doctrines 
and  characters  ; "  yet  in  the  end  by  competent  testi- 
mony he  left  his  classes  always  on  safe  ground. 
This  characteristic,  however  colored  by  other  ele- 
ments, had  its  root  in  that  quality  which  Frederick 
Ozanam  of  the  Sorbonne,  from  the  opposite  stand- 
point of  Romanism,  emphasized  as  the  "  being  just 
to  error."  But  a  teacher  can  never  safely  forget  that 
inconsiderate  pupils  and  sometimes  considerate  pu- 
pils always  outdo  the  teacher  they  admire.  It  would 
have  been  well,  too,  if  the  wall  of  reserve  between 
him  and  his  pupils  could  have  been  broken  down. 
How  his  pupils  admired  him  !  Nay,  how  profoundly 
they  are  grateful  to  him  for  his  inestimable  gifts  as 
a  teacher,  for  their  hearty  admiration  passed  onward 
into  a  feeling  of  hearty  obligation,  and  no  sincerer 
mourners  in  the  wide  circle  are  found  to-day  than 
the  men  whom  he  taught.  So  for  seventeen  years 
he  filled  the  chair  of  History.  It  was  in  his  hands 
a  strong  and  attractive  educating  power.  It  gave 
honor,  nay,  more,  it  gave  the  most  substantial  worth 
to  the  curriculum  of  the  university.  It  has  left  be- 
hind, living  influences  in  developed  minds,  and  a 
bright  and  stimulating  memory.  And  the  loss  is  sim- 
ply and  sadly  irreparable.  Professor  Diman's  work 
as  a  teacher  of  history  would,  however,  be  but  par- 
tially viewed,  if  only  his  labors  in  the  professor's  chair 
were  considered.  He  filled  a  wider  sphere.  For 
ten  years  consecutively  he  gave  a  course  of  lectures 
to  different  circles  of  ladies  in  the  city,  each  course 
embracing  twenty  lectures,  and  in  the  end  covering 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  21 

a  very  wide  and  rich  variety  of  subjects.  Before 
this  company  of  ladies  he  had  for  this  season  planned 
and  partly  finished  a  series  of  lectures  on  modern 
statesmen.  The  last,  upon  Canning,  was  given  on 
January  28.  In  less  than  a  week  from  that  time 
he  was  in  that  heavenly  city  into  which  kings  and 
princes  of  the  earth  "  do  bring  their  honor."  It  is 
fitting  that  this  public  utterance  should  be  made  of 
the  profoundly  grateful  sense  of  value  for  this  teach- 
ing felt  by  those  to  whom  it  was  so  long  given.  For 
thirteen  years  also  he  was  a  lecturer  on  history  in 
the  Friends'  School,  and  when  the  Normal  School 
was  opened  in  1871  he  was  connected  with  it  as 
"lecturer  and  special  instructor."  Every  year  since, 
with  two  exceptions,  he  has  given  a  course  of  lec- 
tures on  his  favorite  subjects  belonging  to  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and  choosing  for  the  last  two,  subjects 
connected  with  our  own  national  history.  His  au- 
dience did  not  consist  wholly  of  students,  but  also 
of  cultivated  persons  outside  the  school  interested 
in  historical  discussions.  In  the  opinion  of  some 
he  was  seen  here  at  his  best  as  a  lecturer.  "  As  I 
recall  these  lectures,"  writes  the  principal,  "  I  hardly 
know  which  was  most  admirable,  the  ready  com- 
mand of  specific  facts,  his  wide  and  original  gene- 
ralizations, his  power  to  subordinate  facts  to  general 
principles,  or  the  grace  and  charm  of  his  utterance." 
The  last  lectures  of  this  course,  those  on  the  "  Rev- 
olutionary Period  in  American  History"  and  "The 
Constitutional  History  of  the  United  States,"  have 
attracted  the  widest  attention.  They  were  prepared 
expressly  for  the  Normal  School.  In  them  he  "cor- 
related in  a  masterly  manner  the  history  of  our  own 
country  with  that  of  the  several  countries  of  western 


22  A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE. 

Europe,  while  he  traced  with  the  clearness  of  a  line 
of  light  the  development  and  the  modification  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  government."  So 
marked  was  the  success  attending  these  courses  of 
lectures  that  there  were  whisperings  of  a  possible 
public  career  for  Professor  Diman.  They  drew  at- 
tention to  him  as  fitted  for  public  life.  There  is, 
however,  little  reason  to  think  that  he,  if  opportu- 
nity had  offered,  would  ever  have  left  his  favorite 
studies  for  political  life,  much  as  he  deplored  the 
alienation  of  educated  men  from  politics.  His  own 
words,  in  an  able  and  comprehensive  review  of  Pres- 
ident Woolsey's  work  on  International  Law,1  would 
seem  to  settle  the  question  :  — 

"  Dr.  Woolsey  has  solved,  as  it  seems  to  us,  more  suc- 
cessfully than  any  one  else,  the  much-debated  problem  of 
the  function  of  the  scholar  in  politics.  He  has  solved  it 
not  by  securing  for  himself  a  seat  in  Congress,  where  the 
abilities  and  attainments  fitted  to  much  higher  work 
might  have  been  wasted  in  the  mere  details  of  practical 
legislation,  .  .  .  but  in  undertaking  the  more  useful 
task  of  influencing  public  opinion,  and  guiding  his  fellow- 
countrymen  to  a  higher  and  more  worthy  conception  of 
their  duties  as  citizens." 

In  the  spring  of  1879,  he  delivered  a  course  of 
historical  lectures  before  the  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity. He  chose  for  his  subject  the  "Thirty  Years' 
War."  When  this  theme  was  announced,  President 
Gilman  writes,  — 

"  There  was  some  regret  that  he  had  selected  one  of 

so  intricate  and  difficult  a  character  for  an  audience  made 

up  of  very  diverse  elements,  composed  as  it  was  both  of 

students  and  educated  gentlemen  and  ladies  from  the 

1  New  Englander,  May,  1878 


A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE.  2$ 

city  of  Baltimore.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end,  how- 
ever, he  held  the  attention  of  his  hearers  in  the  closest 
manner.  ...  If  he  used  any  notes  they  were  of  the 
briefest  sort.  He  seemed  to  be  talking  to  a  company  of 
friends  on  a  subject  of  great  importance,  which  he  per- 
fectly understood,  with  an  unhesitating  command,  not 
only  of  names  and  dates,  but  of  the  exact  epithets,  and 
discriminating  sentences  which  he  wished  to  employ. 
The  ease  with  which  he  lectured  under  circumstances 
of  very  considerable  difficulty  was  only  equaled  by  the 
instruction  and  pleasure  which  he  gave  the  auditors,  not 
being  less,  but  more  than  all 

"  '  The  gentleness  he  seemed  to  be, 

Best  seemed  the  thing  he  was,  and  joined 
Each  office  of  its  social  hour 
To  noble  manners  as  the  flower 

And  native  growth  of  noble  mind.'  " 

It  is  a  matter  of  deep  regret  that  no  report  even 
of  these  lectures  exists.  They  seem  never  to  have 
been  written  out.  They  were  the  fruit  of  studies 
carried  on  during  all  the  previous  winter,  and  with 
consultation  of  all  the  latest  European  contributions 
to  this  grave  period  of  European  history.  A  bare 
enunciation  of  his  method  of  treatment  and  of  the 
topics  discussed  will  show  at  a  glance  the  compre- 
hensiveness with  which  he  treated  all  subjects,  his 
power  to  join  together  and  to  illustrate  historical 
movements  by  the  side-lights  of  such  movements,  in 
great  contemporary  characters  and  events  :  "  The 
subject  will  be  treated  throughout  in  its  general 
relation  to  European  history,  and  as  marking  the 
transition  from  ecclesiastical  to  secular  politics." 
It  was  made  inclusive  of  the  following  topics  :  "  The 
general  causes  of  the  struggle  as  connected  with 
the  state  of  Europe ;  the  House  of  Austria  after 


24  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

the  Reformation  ;  the  religious  parties  in  Germany  ; 
the  Evangelical  Union  ;  the  revolt  in  Bohemia  ;  the 
foreign  policy  of  James  I.  ;  the  conversion  of  a  Bo- 
hemian into  a  German  question  ;  the  military  sys- 
tem of  Mansfield ;  the  Danish  war ;  the  rise  of 
Wallenstein  ;  the  connection  of  Sweden  with  Ger- 
man politics  ;  the  designs  of  Ferdinand  II.  ;  the 
career  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  ;  the  relations  of  Spain 
with  the  Empire  ;  the  fall  of  Wallenstein^  the  pol- 
icy of  Richelieu  ;  the  social  condition  of  Germany 
during  the  late  years  of  the  war ;  the  peace  of  West- 
phalia in  its  relation  to  the  Empire  and  the  Stare 
system  of  Europe  ;  the  general  results  of  the  strug 
gle  in  their  bearing  upon  German  unity  and  na- 
tionality." Had  his  life  been  spared,  it  was  his  pur- 
pose to  gather  up  and  perfect  his  studies  in  a  work 
on  the  great  subject.  It  fascinated  him  not  less  by 
reason  of  the  great  characters  it  involved,  than  by 
the  bearings  he  conceived  it  to  hold  upon  Protes- 
tantism and  Romanism.- 

Some  of  Professor  Diman's  most  characteristic 
and  successful  efforts  were  his  occasional  addresses. 
That  combination  of  gifts  is  rare  by  which  a  man  is 
at  once  the  accurate  and  thorough  student  and  the 
golden-mouthed  speaker.  But  in  him  these  gifts 
were  choicely  blended.  These  occasions  were  some- 
times academic,  oftener  civic,  in  their  character. 
Of  the  former,  the  two  most  admirable  are  an  ad- 
dress before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Am- 
herst College,  given  in  1869,  and  one  before  the 
same  Society  at  Harvard  College,  in  1876.  He 
chose  for  his  theme  at  Amherst,  "The  Method  of 
Academic  Culture."  It  is  a  comparison  and  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  two  disciplines,  that  gained  by  the 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  2$ 

pursuit  of  strictly  scientific  studies  in  methods  pre- 
scribed by  their  own  nature,  and  that  imparted  by  a 
distinctive  academic  discipline  in  which  classical 
study  furnishes  both  norm  and  impulse,  including 
History,  Philosophy,  Poetry,  and  Art.  He  shows 
the  fullest  appreciation  of  what  scientific  studies  can 
do.  He  grants  that  "  the  pure  disciplinary  uses  of 
scientific  study  can  hardly  be  over-estimated."  But 
quoting  from  Emerson  that  pregnant  sentence,  "The 
foundation  of  culture  is  the  moral  sentiment,"  he 
advocates  the  claims  of  a  distinctive  academic  cul- 
ture, not  in  place  of  the  other,  not  in  opposition  to 
the  other,  but  in  alliance  with  scientific  studies  to 
preside  over  and  direct  them."  "  Admirable  culture 
of  whatever  kind,"  as  he  said  upon  another  occasion, 
"  must  have  its  roots  in  the  moral  sentiment,"  and  he 
sums  up  a  view  defended  with  acuteness  and  force, 
adorned  with  singular  wealth  of  illustration,  in  the 
words  :  "  Scientific  training,  unless  regulated  and 
qualified  by  broader  culture,  can  only  end  in  debil- 
itating instead  of  enlarging  the  spiritual  nature. 
.  .  .  For  education  must  receive  its  shape  from 
above,  not  from  beneath." 

In  June,  1876,  he  gave  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  ora- 
tion at  Harvard  College,  choosing  for  his  theme  one 
gravely  pertinent  to  a  crisis  in  our  national  history, 
"The  Alienation  of  the  Educated  Class  from  Politics." 
The  line  of  thought  in  the  address  was  at  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  the  political  pessimism  which 
had  in  some  quarters  begun  to  assert  itself.  In  this 
threatened  alienation  he  recognized  a  sign  of  most 
evil  portent  upon  our  horizon.  He  defined  the  edu- 
cated class  as  "  the  large  number  who  form  the  medi- 
ating terms  between  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the 


26  A   COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE. 

community  and  the  great  majority,  as  the  interpre- 
ters and  expounders  of  principles  which  others  have 
explored."  ..."  In  the  wider  sense,  while  the 
phrase  implies  educated  (  intellect,  it  implies  even 
more,  educated  judgment  and  educated  conscience, 
those  sovereign  qualities  which  are  usurped  by  no 
single  calling  but  belong  to  man  as  man."  He 
passed  in  dignified,  but  incisive  and  able,  review,  the 
boding  utterances  of  noted  European  and  English 
thinkers  concerning  our  institutions.  While  con- 
ceding, for  the  argument,  the  utmost  "  that  the  most 
dismal  of  political  Cassandras  have  asserted  as  to 
the  working  of  American  politics,"  he  triumphantly 
showed  that  their  complaints  and  grievances  have 
not  the  significance  which  has  been  attributed  to 
them.  And  then,  taking  positive  ground,  he  brought 
out  the  truth,  that  the  man  educated  in  the  ample 
sense  previously  outlined  was  "  a  spiritual  power  in 
the  State  that  no  factions  can  outwit  ;  that  no  ma- 
jorities can  overwhelm  ;  "  that  he  "  makes  himself 
felt  in  a  sphere  where  the  vulgar  conditions  of  po- 
litical action  no  longer  operate,  — 

"  No  private  but  a  person  raised 
With  strength  sufficient,  and  command  from  Heaven." 

He  was  addressing,  perhaps,  the  most  brilliant  as- 
semblage of  educated  men  that  our  commencement 
occasions  annually  gather.  And  his  enthusiastic 
reception  by  that  tribunal  of  scholars  was  itself  a 
high  tribute  to  the  timely  because  hopeful,  to  the 
eloquent  because  sincere,  utterances  of  the  orator. 

His  various  addresses  on  civic  occasions  consti- 
tute a  remarkable  group  of  such  efforts.  They  began 
with  his  oration  before  the  city  authorities  on  July  4, 
1866.     That  is  marked  by  the  same  comprehensive 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  27 

treatment  which  distinguished  all  his  work,  but  lacks 
its  thoroughness.  But  his  address  on  the  unveiling 
of  the  monument  to  Roger  Williams  ;  at  the  cen- 
tennial celebration  of  the  capture  of  Prescott  ;  on 
the  opening  of  the  free  library  at  Bristol  ;  and 
memorably  his  last,  on  the  centenary  of  the  settle- 
ment of  the  town  of  Bristol,  are  among  the  best 
specimens  of  this  species  of  oratorical  effort.  At 
first,  in  the  delivery  of  these  addresses,  he  used  his 
manuscript.  But  he  grew  more  and  more  indepen- 
dent of  it,  and  in  his  last  address  spoke  for  more 
than  an  hour  without  hesitation,  without  a  confused 
sentence,  and  without  a  note  before  him.  The  great 
master  of  Roman  oratory  has  said,  "  No  power  of 
speaking  can  belong  to  any  but  to  him  who  knows 
the  subject  on  which  he  has  to  speak."  1  It  is  faint 
praise  to  say  of  Professor  Diman  that  he  knew  the 
subject  on  which  he  had  to  speak.  The  merits  of 
these  addresses  are  the  fitness  of  the  word  to  the 
occasion,  the  body  of  vivid,  stirring  historical  detail, 
or  the  line  of  high  thinking  pursued,  the  honesty, 
the  independence  of  his  positions,  all  suffused  with 
pure  literary  tone.  What  Matthew  Arnold  has  said 
of  the  poetry  of  Keats,  may,  with  equal  pertinence, 
be  applied  to  the  entire  group  of  his  addresses : 
"  There  is  [in  them]  that  stamp  of  high  work  which 
is  akin  to  the  character,  which  is  character  passing 
into  intellectual  productions."  And  then  his  style, 
how  admirable  for  its  purity  and  simplicity,  how 
finished  in  its  grace,  the  apt  word  chosen,  sparing 
of  ornament,  yet  rich  in  its  general  coloring  and 
never  bare.     Joined  to  this,  as  a  fit  interpreter,  was 

1  Dicendi  enim  virtus,  nisi  ei,  qui  dicit,  ea,  de  quibus  dicit,  percepta 
sint,  exstare  non  potest.  —  (Cicero  De  Oratore,  Lib.  1,  Cap.  xi.) 


28  A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE. 

his  delivery  ;  calm,  conciliatory,  self-possessed,  mov- 
ing through  its  power  of  self-command,  its  tones 
musical  and  well  modulated,  his  eye  ever  kindling 
with  his  thought,  and  his  face  expressive  of  every 
changing  emotion  his  theme  awakened. 

In  the  autumn  of  1879  he  was  invited  to  give 
a  course  of  Lowell  Lectures.  Deferring  to  the 
strongly  expressed  wish  of  Mr.  Lowell,  that  they 
should  discuss  some  subjects  connected  with  Nat- 
ural Theology,  he  turned  aside  from  his  favorite  his- 
toric studies,  chose  for  his  theme  the  relation  of  the 
latest  scientific  theories  to  Theism,  and  gave  a  long 
and  laborious  winter  to  the  preparation  of  the  de- 
sired course.  He  read  widely  and  thoroughly  all 
that  scientific  unbelief  had  to  urge  on  which  he 
could  lay  his  hands.  It  chanced  that  I  spent  an 
evening  with  him  just  as  he  had  fairly  encountered 
the  stress  of  the  opposition.  He  was  evidently 
pained  to  find  that  any  satisfactory  treatment  of  the 
issues  involved  would  cost  so  much  struggle.  His 
tone  was  almost  sad.  But  he  grappled  with  the  sub- 
ject, shunned  no  difficulties,  and  the  result  of  it  all 
is,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Fisher,  a  most  com- 
petent judge,  "a  noble  vindication  of  Theism,  treat- 
ing fully  and  satisfactorily  the  problems  and  objec- 
tions raised  by  the  science  of  the  day,  and  having 
the  literary  charm  that  belonged  to  everything  he 
wrote."  The  last  sermon  he  ever  wrote  was  the  re- 
sult of  all  these  studies.  It  was  founded  on  the 
parable  of  the  mustard  seed,  and  its  aim  was  to  show 
that  "  enlarged  study  of  nature  and  of  nature's  laws, 
instead  of  indisposing  ns  to  accept  the  distinctive 
teachings  of  Revelation,  will  arm  those  teachings 
with  new  arguments  and  lend  them  more  convincing 
force." 


A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE.  29 

Not  by  his  voice  alone  did  Professor  Diman  at- 
tempt to  instruct  men.  His  pen  was  seldom  idle. 
The  regret  is  now  widely  felt  that  he  had  not  con- 
centrated his  studies  more.  What  he  has  done  dis- 
cursively and  fragmentarily  only  shows  what  he 
might  have  done  in  some  extended  work.  What 
now  remains  from  his  pen,  beside  addresses  already 
adverted  to,  are  a  few  published  sermons,  a  few  ar- 
ticles in  Reviews,  book  notices  in  leading  journals, 
and  a  large  amount  of  editorial  writing  for  the  "  Prov- 
idence Journal."  The  best  specimens  of  his  Review 
articles  are,  that  on  "  University  Corporations," * 
that  on  "  The  Roman  Element  in  Modern  Civiliza- 
tion," 2  and  that  on  "  Religion  in  America."  3  The 
last  drew  to  itself  a  wide  attention  for  its  able  gen- 
eralization, its  elaborate  summary  of  facts,  and  its 
luminous,  fair  treatment  of  a  difficult  subject.  For 
the  "  North  American  Review,"  and  the  "  Nation,"  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  preparing  book  notices,  mainly 
of  works  connected  with  historical  study,  such  as 
Motley's  "  History  of  the  Netherlands,"  or  Ban- 
croft's "  Races  of  the  Pacific,"  or  Masson's  "  Life  of 
Milton."  And  all  this  work  was  done  with  painstak- 
ing. He  well  knew  how  worthless,  how  unjust,  both 
to  author  and  reader,  such  work  is  if  done  in  a  slov- 
enly and  superficial  manner  ;  how  valuable  if  it  is  done 
faithfully  and  skillfully,  and  he  wrought  accordingly. 
Perhaps  no  one  outside  the  editorial  rooms  of  the 
"  Providence  Journal  "  could  have  known  the  number 
and  the  variety  of  Professor  Diman's  contributions 
to  the  paper.     His  most  intimate  friends  have  since 

1  Baptist  Quarterly,  October,  1869. 

2  New  Englander,  January,  1872. 

8  North  American  Review,  January,  1876. 


30  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

his  death  been  astonished  by  it.  These  contribu- 
tions began  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  They 
cover  a  very  wide  field  of  discussion.  The  notices 
of  Continental  politics,  of  English  questions  as  they 
rose,  of  ecclesiastical  policy  in  all  branches  of  the 
church,  of  distinguished  men  in  all  spheres  of  life, 
foreign  or  native,  of  books,  of  art,  with  articles  in 
lighter  vein,  make  up  a  body  of  editorial  writing 
which  would  impress  any  one  as  remarkable,  con- 
sidered as  an  addition  to  other  and  main  labors.  It 
is,  in  one  view  of  it,  ephemeral.  But  if  viewed  in 
relation  to  the  promotion  of  a  sound  public  opinion 
(and  here  he  conceived  the  function  of  the  scholar 
in  politics  mainly  to  lie)  it  is  not  ephemeral.  And 
this  is  the  justification  which  such  a  scholar  as  Pro- 
fessor Diman  would  ask  for  expending  so  much  of 
his  strength  in  the  columns  of  the  newspaper. 

This  survey  of  Professor  Diman's  career  gives  us 
only  the  outward  view.  But  the  man,  though  in  his 
works,  is  always  more  than  his  works.  That  fount- 
ain of  intellectual  vitality  whence  they  flowed  was, 
in  Professor  Diman,  deep-set  and  exhaustless.  It 
gave  him  easy  mastery  of  subjects.  He  grasped  an 
intricate  point  quickly.  He  absorbed  a  book  quickly. 
He  constructed  his  plans  of  work  quickly.  So  easily 
was  everything  done  that  one  might  not  give  him 
credit  for  the  pains  with  which  everything  was  done. 
No  matter  what  he  had  in  hand,  the  law  for  him  was 
the  same,  work  proportioned  to  the  end  in  view. 
Without  strain,  without  noise,  he  wrought  rapidly 
but  thoroughly,  and  reached  his  goal,  a  well-breathed 
runner  ready  for  some  new  intellectual  race.  Fol- 
lowing, too,  the  impulses  of  this  mental  vitality,  he 
secured  a  many-sided  culture.     Few  topics  in  con- 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  3 1 

versation  couid  be  started  in  which  his  word  was  not 
the  saying  of  a  man  who  had  digested  some  knowl- 
edge of  that  subject.  It  was  the  genuine  love  of 
truth  in  many  directions  which  developed  this  qual- 
ity in  him.  His  mind  not  only  stood  four-square 
to  all  the  varieties  of  knowledge,  but  was  vitally 
impelled  to  seek  a  various  and  rich  knowledge. 
Scientific  truth  attracted  him  least,  but  he  never 
disparaged  it.  It  was  the  spiritual  side  of  things 
to  which  he  was  most  drawn.  From  that  he  drew 
impulse,  from  the  "  whole  varied  and  subtle  experi- 
ence of  humanity,  including  in  it  whatever  of  gen- 
uine and  noble  utterance,  whatever  in  poetry,  phi- 
losophy, or  in  history."  In  alliance  with  this  was 
an  intellectual  outspokenness.  He  had  no  intellect- 
ual timidity,  which  is  sometimes  mistaken  for  wise 
caution.  He  was  too  fond  of  being  in  the  opposition, 
too  fond,  perhaps,  of  paradox.  But  his  love  of  truth 
was  something  vital  and  dominant  in  his  intellectual 
constitution.  He  might  say  with  John  Hales,  of 
Eton  :  "If,  with  all  this  cost  and  pains,  my  purchase 
is  but  error,  I  may  safely  say,  to  err  hath  cost  me 
more  than  it  has  many  to  gain  the  truth."  A  virtue 
in  excess  becomes  a  fault,  and  so  there  may  have 
been  occasions  when  he  was  too  much  of  the  icono- 
clast. But  better  a  thousand  times  intellectual  icon- 
oclasm,  which  too  rudely  dashes  against  received 
opinions,  than  that  intellectual  dishonesty  which 
plays  fast  and  loose  with  subscriptions,  and  smothers 
convictions  through  fear  of  man  or  love  of  the  world. 
A  brilliant  lecturer  on  history  has  lately,  in 
speaking  of  Carlyle's  distaste  for  the  vocation  of  the 
teacher,  said  that  "  genius  does  not  take  to  peda- 
gogy."    But  did  not  genius  take  to  pedagogy  when 


32  A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE. 

Plato  taught  in  Athens,  and  John  Milton  had  his 
scholars  in  London  ?  If  genius  cannot  see  in  a  true 
pedagogy  what  its  contents  really  are,  so  much  the 
worse  for  genius.  At  any  rate,  Professor  Diman,  by 
the  breadth  and  fullness  of  his  scholarship,  found  no 
difficulty  in  making  his  sphere  of  usefulness  here  a 
wide  one.  For  years  he  has  been  a  connecting  link 
between  the  university  and  the  city  in  which  it 
stands  ;  nay,  also,  and  the  State  of  whose  traditions 
he  was  proud.  The  college,  in  his  view,  could  not 
largely  thrive  if  it  existed  as  an  island  washed  on  all 
sides  by  tides  of  business  activity,  and  yet  in  scho- 
lastic seclusion,  isolated  from  living  interests.  Al- 
ways have  there  been  men  in  it  to  act  as  a  mediating 
element  between  it  and  the  stirring  world  outside, 
and  Professor  Diman  but  continued  the  goodly  suc- 
cession. Hence  his  activity  in  various  departments 
of  municipal  work,  in  questions  of  public  education, 
reformations  for  the  young,  in  the  hospital,  and  in 
grave  political  crises,  his  readiness  to  lift  his  voice 
as  a  citizen  for  what  he  thought  noblest  and  best  in 
politics.  I  would  not  willingly  utter  a  word  that 
should  seem  to  depreciate  a  very  different  class  of 
college  men,  whose  lives  seem  quite  separate  from 
all  these  interests  of  the  community,  who  do  their 
work  as  teachers  modestly,  quietly,  efficiently,  in 
class-rooms ;  for  whom  the  outside  world  has  no  meed 
of  applause,  but  who  fulfill  noble  aims  in  a  noble  fash- 
ion, as  they  train  men.  But  when  a  man  like  Pro- 
fessor Diman  is  found,  who  can  bring  to  the  profes- 
sor's chair  the  gifts  of  public  influence,  and  who,  by 
identifying  himself  with  various  public  interests,  can 
be  the  spokesman  for  his  city  and  his  State  as  well 
as  for  his  college,  let  us  be  thankful  for  such  services 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  33 

as  keep  the  college  in  the  affections  of  men,  in  their 
hearts  as  well  as  in  their  heads.  The  rich  vitality, 
the  genuine  honesty,  the  true  breadth  of  the  intel- 
lectual character  were  the  controlling  elements  of  his 
mental  structure.  Strength  and  beauty  were  in  him 
blended  in  native  endowment,  blended  in  his  culture, 
and  blended  also  in  his  work. 

The  social  nature  in  him  was  opulent  and  fine  of 
texture.  As  it  revealed  itself  to  his  family  in  the 
sacred  privacy  of  that  doubly  bereft  and  darkened 
home,  its  sweet  and  constant  overflow,  its  tender 
grace,  developing  with  passing  years,  hallowed  and 
transfigured  now  by  death,  those  who  knew  his  home, 
knew  full  well.  Of  what  he  was  in  the  sacred  inter- 
course of  friendship  I  hardly  dare  trust  myself  to 
speak.  What  depth  and  trueness,  what  gentleness 
and  responsiveness  of  affection  dwelt  in  that  soul, 
affianced  also  with  that  gifted  and  fascinating  mental 
nature !  They  gave  it  warmth.  He  did  wear,  to 
many,  an  air  of  reserve.  But  reserved  natures,  when 
and  where  they  open  themselves  in  the  gracious  in- 
tercourse of  friendship,  are  apt  to  be  the  most  genial 
of  men.  His  love  of  choice  companionship,  in  his 
walks  or  by  his  fireside,  his  delight  in  the  converse 
where  soul  touches  soul  in  kindred  experiences  of 
life,  or  kindred  tastes,  or  kindred  struggles  and  as- 
pirations, elicited  from  him  that  rare  power  in  con- 
versation which  marked  him  everywhere.  His  wit 
sometimes  glittering  with  its  sarcastic  thrusts,  far 
oftener  genial  with  its  drollery,  what  charm  it  gave  to 
all  his  talk  !  Then,  too,  came  out  his  fine  enthusi- 
asm (he  had  no  "bankrupt  enthusiasm  ")  as  together 
with  his  friends  he  discoursed  on  the  subjects  that 

3 


34  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

lay  near  his  heart.  Ah,  me !  those  beautiful  hours 
—  how  transfigured  to  memory  they  all  are  now. 

His  Christian  character  was  marked  from  the  very 
outset,  when  he  made  his  confession  of  Christ  inside 
college  walls  and  in  student  days,  by  manly  tone,  by 
intelligence,  by  genuineness.  He  was  afraid  of  effu- 
siveness. He  loved  quiet  earnestness  in  Christian 
life.  He  was  too  much  repelled  from  really  worthy 
types  of  Christian  life  which  were  of  an  opposite 
tenor,  by  reason  of  his  tastes  or  distastes.  He  be- 
lieved profoundly  in  the  church  of  the  living  God, 
and  like  Bunsen,  from  whom,  indeed,  he  may  have 
caught  the  taste,  he  loved  with  "passionate  fondness 
its  old  familiar  hymns,  its  solemn  forms  of  prayer." 
As  he  allied  himself  with  no  school  in  theology,  so, 
of  late  years,  he  identified  himself  actively  with  no 
one  denomination  of  Christians.  But,  however  this 
may  be  explained,  it  may  never  be  explained  with  any 
truth  as  the  giving  up  of  early  convictions.  He  was 
"knit  by  all  the  chords  of  his  being  to  the  church  of 
the  past,"  and  he  knew  no  hope  for  man  but  in  Chris- 
tianity, preserved  and  proclaimed  by  the  church  of 
the  future. 

Such,  imperfectly  outlined,  was  his  character; 
such  his  work.  This  is  finished.  That  is  garnered 
in  the  heavenly  immortality,  has  passed  also  from 
the  force  of  a  personal  power  here  into  the  influence 
of  a  sacred  and  beautiful  memory.  Our  eulogy  dies 
away  into  threnody.  "All  human  work,"  Carlyle 
says,  "  is  transitory,  small  in  itself,  contemptible. 
Only  the  worker  thereof  and  the  spirit  that  dwell- 
eth  in  him  is  significant."  Judged  by  this  test 
Professor  Diman's  career  is  significant.  Significant 
of  the  influence   true   culture   may  exert  —  of   the 


A    COMMEMORATIVE   DISCOURSE.  35 

noble  results  true  culture  may  produce,  and  signifi- 
cant also  of  our  loss.  These  to  his  memory.  But 
oh,  "the  heavy  change  that  he  is  gone."  He  had 
been  sought  for  pulpits  in  our  principal  cities  by 
reason  of  his  abilities  as  a  preacher  ;  for  professor- 
ships in  other  institutions  ;  repeatedly  by  Harvard 
College,  where  he  was  honored  and  beloved,  as  he 
was  honored  and  beloved  here  ;  sought  also  for  po- 
sitions as  the  head  of  seats  of  learning.  But  our 
rejoicing  is  this,  that  his  work  was  finished  here  in 
the  university,  of  which  he  had  been  ever  a  filial 
son,  in  the  city  which  was  proud  of  him,  in  the  State 
which  he  loved  and  with  whose  history  he  has  for- 
ever linked  himself.  He  was  stricken  down  in  the 
very  flush  and  bloom  of  his  power  and  plans.  The 
summer  vacation  had  been  delightfully  passed  with 
his  family,  and  with  dear,  life-long  friends  among 
the  mountains  and  lakes  and  by  the  sounding  sea. 
Recruited,  apparently,  by  it,  he  had  gone  partly 
through  the  winter's  work.  For  the  first  time  in 
his  life  did  that  work  seem  to  drag  him  along  with 
it  instead  of  being  triumphantly  lifted  and  borne  by 
him.  Disease  came  at  length,  so  treacherously  that 
none  feared  till  it  was  too  late.  And  then,  on  that 
winter  evening,  the  shock  —  the  pitiless,  dreadful 
shock,  the  hush  that  settled  in  a  hundred  homes  of 
the  city,  in  the  very  streets.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  touching,  and  nothing  could  have  been 
more  significant.  Months  have  passed,  and  yet  we 
ask  ourselves,  Is  he  gone?  The  vitality  that  was  in 
him,  so  exuberant,  so  large,  making  itself  felt  in  so 
many  circles,  is  still  giving  a  sense  of  his  presence, 
so  strong  and  deep  that  we  cannot  help  recalling 
and  repeating  those  lines  of  the  "  In  Memoriam,"  so 
closely  applicable  to  our  beloved  dead  :  — 


36  A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE. 

'  If  one  should  bring  me  this  report 

That  thou  hadst  touched  the  land  to-day, 
And  I  went  down  unto  the  quay 
And  found  thee  lying  in  the  port ; 

"  And  standing  muffled  round  with  woe, 
Should  see  thy  passengers  in  rank 
Come  stepping  lightly  down  the  plank 
And  beckoning  unto  those  they  know  ; 

"  And  if  along  with  these  should  come 
The  man  I  held  as  half  divine, 
Should  strike  a  sudden  hand  in  mine 
And  ask  a  thousand  things  of  home  ; 

"  And  I  should  tell  him  all  my  pain, 

And  how  my  life  had  drooped  of  late, 
And  he  should  sorrow  o'er  my  state 
And  marvel  what  possessed  my  brain, 

"  And  I  perceive  no  touch  of  change, 
No  hint  of  death  in  all  his  frame ; 
But  found  him  all  in  all  the  same, 
I  should  not  think  it  to  be  strange." 

We  buried  him  amid  the  snows  of  winter.  The 
sky  over  our  head,  as  we  bore  him  to  the  cemetery, 
was  full  of  blessed  sunlight.  There  was  "  calm  and 
deep  peace  in  the  wide  air."  There  was  calm  and 
deep  peace,  too,  in  our  hearts  as  we  remembered  the 
noble  life  and  recalled  the  words,  "  Blessed  are  the 
dead  that  die  in  the  Lord."  We  thought  of  the 
coming  spring,  in  which  he  always  so  delighted,  and 
the  spring  has  come  to  us.  He  is,  in  the  language 
of  a  favorite  hymn,  where 

—  "  Everlasting  spring  abides 
And  never  withering  flowers." 

Yet  he  himself  has  uttered  words  in  one  of  his 
sermons  which  are  so  deeply  true  and  so  touchingly 


A    COMMEMORATIVE  DISCOURSE.  37 

pertinent,  that  they  prove  the  fittest  conclusion  to 
this  commemorative  service  :  — 

"  Even  when  in  middle  life  the  strong  man  is  suddenly 
stricken  down,  dying  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  with  har- 
ness on,  there  are  many  aspects  in  which  the  sorrow  is 
full  of  comfort.  It  is  the  death  which  the  good  soldier 
never  shuns.  The  memory  left  is  not  of  decay,  of  feeble- 
ness, but  of  the  fullness  of  manly  strength.  The  image 
which  affection  cherishes  is  a  grateful  one.  And  es- 
pecially is  this  the  case  when  into  the  zealous  and  faith- 
ful labor  of  a  few  years  have  been  compressed  the  work 
of  a  long  life.  We  need  not  length  of  days  to  do  well 
our  lifework.  The  most  consecrated  souls  are  often 
called  soonest  away." 

One  sad  word  more  must  needs  be  spoken.  To 
end  this  memorial,  without  allusion  to  the  deeper 
shadows  which  have  settled  on  that  bereaved  home, 
were  to  repress  sympathies  that  struggle  for  ex- 
pression. The  mysteries  grow  thicker  and  darker 
which  have  closed  in  on  us.  That  fair  young  life 
so  suddenly  quenched  !  Yet  that  life  in  which  he 
so  delighted,  so  soon  with  him,  and  both  with  Christ 
in  his  glory.  We  in  our  grief  lift  our  eyes  to  the 
hills  whence  cometh  our  help,  and  our  hearts  to  the 
region,  — 

"  Where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 


LITERARY   AND    HISTORICAL 
ADDRESSES. 


THE 

ALIENATION    OF   THE   EDUCATED 
CLASS   FROM    POLITICS. 

AN  ORATION  BEFORE  THE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA  SOCIETY 
AT   CAMBRIDGE,   JUNE   29,   1876. 


You  ask  me  to  address  you  at  a  time  which 
hardly  allows  the  usual  license  in  the  selection  of  a 
theme.  Gathering,  as  we  do,  to  this  annual  festival 
on  the  eve  of  the  great  secular  commemoration 
which  rivets  all  regards  to  the  issues  of  an  unex- 
ampled experiment,  I  should  justly  forfeit  your  sym- 
pathy were  I  rash  enough  to  divert  your  thoughts 
from  those  imperious  public  concerns  which  mingle 
so  much  of  pride  and  fear  with  their  far-reaching 
problems.  Even  when  meeting  as  associates  of  an 
academical  fraternity,  we  cannot  forget  that  we  are 
constituents  of  a  larger  society,  — partners  in  a  fel- 
lowship more  comprehensive  than  any  specific  call- 
ing or  profession,  —  members  incorporate  into  that 
spacious  and  supreme  commonwealth,  without  whose 
wholesome  restraints  and  benign  supervision  all 
bonds  would  be  relaxed,  all  intellectual  progress 
would  falter,  and  all  highest  aims  which  we  here 
cherish  fail  of  accomplishment.  Least  of  all  can 
we  be  unmindful  of  such  weightier  concerns  when 
assembled,  for  the  first  time,  under  the  shadow  of 


42  THE   ALIEN  A  TION  OF   THE 

these  walls,  —  these  walls  that  have  been  reared  in 
recognition  of  the  sacrifice  made  by  scholars  on  the 
common  altar,  which,  long  as  they  stand,  will  attest 
the  alliance  of  generous  culture  and  unselfish  public 
spirit,  and  whose  very  stones  would  cry  out  should 
the  sons  of  this  illustrious  mother  ever  grow  heed- 
less of  the  lessons  here  inculcated. 

Is  the  culture  which  proved  itself  so  equal  to  the 
strenuous  calls  of  war  less  able  to  cope  with  the 
strain  of  civil  life  ?  Is  that  educated  class  which 
you  represent  coming  to  be  a  less  efficient  force  in 
our  national  experiment  ?  Are  our  intellectual  and 
our  political  activities  doomed  to  pursue  two  con- 
stantly diverging  paths,  our  ideal  aims  ceasing  to 
qualify  and  shape  our  practical  endeavors  ?  These 
are  among  the  questions  which  force  themselves 
upon  us  at  a  time  like  this.  The  solicitude  which 
they  awaken  is  shown  in  the  humiliating  contrasts 
so  freely  drawn  between  the  public  men  of  the  pres- 
ent day  and  those  of  an  earlier  period  ;  in  the  fre- 
quent discussion  of  the  sphere  of  the  scholar  in 
politics,  and  in  the  approbation  so  heartily  expressed 
when  men  of  exceptional  training  have  been  se- 
lected to  fill  important  public  stations.  If  this  con- 
viction that  the  breach  between  Politics  and  Culture 
is  widening  be  well  grounded,  it  is  a  capital  arraign- 
ment of  American  society,  —  the  one  result  that 
would  stamp  our  republican  experiment  with  fail- 
ure. Does  our  political  system  exclude  from  public 
recognition  those  superior  interests  which  enlist  the 
most  enthusiastic  cooperation  of  generous  minds,  or 
does  it  tend  to  strip  of  legitimate  influence  those 
best  fitted  to  wrestle  with  worthy  issues  ?  Which- 
ever the  cause,  the  result  would  be  equally  disas- 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  43 

trous.  Should  such  a  deplorable  divorce  become  es- 
tablished, our  culture  would  be  cut  off  from  health- 
ful contact  with  living  interests,  and  our  politics  be 
robbed  of  pure  and  ennobling  inspiration  ;  our  schol- 
ars would  sink  to  pedants  and  our  statesmen  to 
politicians.  The  merit  of  such  a  policy  as  ours  can- 
not be  measured  by  the  success  with  which  it  meets 
the  common  ends  of  government.  However  effect- 
ive it  may  have  proved  in  promoting  material  pros- 
perity, or  a  wholesome  dispersion  of  political  power, 
if  it  does  not  at  the  same  time  hold  in  happy  ad- 
justment the  highest  instincts  and  the  positive 
governing  forces  of  the  nation,  it  cannot  claim  to  be 
truly  representative,  nor  long  elicit  that  prompt  alle- 
giance of  reason  and  conscience  on  which  all  genu- 
ine representative  institutions  must  ultimately  rest. 
Not  extent  of  territory,  nor  multiplication  of  mate- 
rial resources,  but  a  noble  and  sympathetic  public 
life  is  the  guage  of  national  greatness.  "  The  excel- 
lencie  and  perfection  of  a  commonweale,"  to  bor- 
row the  words  of  Bodin,  "  are  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  largeness  of  the  bounds  thereof,  but  by  the 
bounds  of  virtue  itself."  All  famous  states  have 
been  informed  with  ideal  forces.  No  dazzling  spread 
of  material  products  at  Philadelphia  may  console  us, 
if  throughout  that  varied  show  we  are  haunted  with 
the  conviction  that  what  gives  meaning  and  grace 
and  admirableness  to  national  success  is  losing  its 
sway  over  us.  Though  this  great  Leviathan,  whose 
completed  century  we  celebrate,  be  indeed  hugest  of 
all  commonwealths  that  have  breasted  the  flood  of 
time,  its  vast  bulk  will  only  stand  revealed  as  more 
ugly,  more  clumsy,  more  preposterous,  if  it  simply 
drift  on  the  sleepy  drench  of  private,  selfish  interests 
and  sordid  cares. 


44  THE   ALIENATION  OF   THE 

In  discussing  this  question  let  us  not  forget  the 
wider  meaning  with  which  the  phrase  "educated 
class  "  has  become  invested.  With  men  of  excep- 
tional eminence  in  the  selecter  walks  of  literature 
and  science  we  are  not  concerned.  That  absorbing: 
devotion  to  a  pursuit,  by  which  alone  its  supreme 
prizes  are  purchased,  carries  with  it,  in  most  cases,  a 
corresponding  sacrifice  of  aptitude  for  other  call- 
ings ;  and  the  familiar  instances  in  which  some  of 
our  foremost  men  of  letters  have  entered  with  suc- 
cess the  political  arena  must  be  reckoned  as  bril- 
liant exceptions  to  the  rule.  The  habits  of  the 
study  are  not  the  best  discipline  for  affairs,  however 
true  the  maxim  of  Bacon,  that  no  kind  of  men  love 
business  for  itself  but  those  that  are  learned.  Ex- 
perience has  shown  that  the  intellectual  qualities 
which  insure  success  in  the  discovery  of  truth  are 
rarely  combined  with  the  qualities  which  lend  these 
truths  their  greatest  practical  efficiency.  The  serv- 
ice which  original  genius  renders  society  in  other 
ways  far  more  than  compensates  for  any  injury  which 
its  renunciation  of  ordinary  duties  may  involve. 
The  world  lost  nothing  by  leaving  Adam  Smith  in  a 
professor's  chair,  and  gained  nothing  by  giving  La 
Place  a  minister's  portfolio.  By  the  term  "  educated 
class,"  I  have  in  mind  that  much  larger  number  who 
form  the  mediating  term  between  the  intellectual 
leaders  of  the  community  and  the  great  majority  ; 
the  interpreters  and  expounders  of  principles  which 
others  have  explored  ;  the  liberal  connection,  so  ad- 
quately  represented  here  to-day,  not  of  the  learned 
professions  only,  but  of  men  generously  inured,  by 
the  discipline  of  such  an  ancient  university  as  this, 
to  just  opinions,  and  sincere  speech,  and  independ- 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  45 

ent  action  ;  whose  scholarship  is  the  gracious  ap- 
parel of  well-compacted  character.  In  this  wider 
sense,  while  the  phrase  implies  educated  intellect 
and  educated  taste,  it  implies  even  more,  educated 
judgment  and  educated  conscience,  those  sovereign 
qualities  which  are  usurped  by  no  single  calling,  but 
belong  to  man  as  man,  —  to  man  in  the  most  benefi- 
cent play  of  his  faculties,  in  the  ripest  growth  of 
his  reason,  and  in  the  widest  scope  of  his  influence. 
This  is  the  class  through  whom  the  impulses  of 
sound  culture  are  disseminated,  and  whose  aliena- 
tion from  public  interests  is  a  sign  of  such  evil  por- 
tent on  our  political  horizon. 

In  our  own  case,  this  lessening  interest  of  the  ed- 
ucated class  in  politics  is  more  significant  when  we 
recall  the  fact,  that  politics  once  disputed  with  the- 
ology the  sway  over  the  most  vigorous  thought 
among  us.  Without  doubt  this  modification  may 
be  traced,  in  part,  to  the  operation  of  general  social 
causes  ;  but  I  can  by  no  means  consent  to  their 
opinion  who  would  find  its  main  explanation  here. 
That  the  interests  of  society  are  far  more  diversified 
to-day  than  a  century  ago,  that  the  speculative  prob- 
lems pressing  for  solution  are  vastly  more  numer- 
ous and  complex,  that  the  most  adventuresome  and 
prolific  intellectual  energy  of  our  time  no  longer 
expends  itself  on  those  questions  which  in  former 
ages  exercised  such  potent  fascination,  no  man  will 
deny  ;  yet  this  spurring  of  mental  activity  in  new 
directions  need  not  have  caused  its  zeal  to  flag  in 
the  old.  Is  it  not  the  prerogative  of  all  genuine 
impulse  to  quicken  a  common  movement  ?  Does 
not  success  in  one  field  rouse  to  new  effort  in  every 
other  ?     I  would  not  include  in  this  the  wild  pur- 


4^  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

suit  of  wealth,  the  vulgar  materialism,  of  which  in 
recent  years  we  have  had  such  shocking  examples, 
and  within  whose  poisoned  circle  all  generous  aspi- 
ration withers  ;  the  rivalry  which  I  am  here  discuss- 
ing is  the  rivalry  of  intellectual  forces.  Can  social 
progress,  in  this  sense,  involve  any  such  result  as  is 
here  alleged  ?  Can  there  be  any  real  antagonism 
between  the  study  of  nature  and  the  study  of  man  ; 
between  investigations  of  the  laws  printed  on  the 
heavens  and  the  laws  by  which  society  advances  and 
great  and  durable  states  are  built  up  ?  When  sci- 
ence, ceasing  to  speak  as  a  child,  published  through 
Newton  decrees  that  claimed  obedience  beyond  the 
flaming  walls  of  space,  did  it  chill  the  interest  of 
Locke  in  those  inquiries  which  scattered  such  pro- 
lific seeds  in  the  soil  of  this  new  world  ?  The  last 
century  was  in  France  an  epoch  of  prodigious  scien- 
tific movement  ;  but  in  what  period  were  social  and 
political  problems  ever  more  keenly  debated  ?  The 
country  that  made  its  boast  of  a  Buffon  and  a  La- 
voisier could  point  not  less  to  a  Montesquieu  and  a 
Turgot.  Nay,  in  the  same  person  the  two  tenden- 
cies were  sometimes  combined,  and  the  precocious 
genius  of  Condorcet  was  busied  equally  with  the 
differential  calculus,  and  with  the  foundations  of 
human  society.  After  reaching  almost  the  highest 
distinction  as  a  mathematician,  he  declared  "  that 
for  thirty  years  he  had  hardly  passed  a  day  without 
meditating  on  the  political  sciences."  If,  therefore, 
our  educated  class  has  lost  the  interest  it  once  felt 
in  political  problems,  this  result  must  be  ascribed 
to  something  else  than  our  stimulated  zeal  for  phys- 
ical studies.  And  if  we  can  no  longer  say  with 
Algernon  Sydney,  that  political  questions   "so  far 


EDUCA  TED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  47 

concern  all  mankind,  that  besides  the  influence  on 
our  future  life  they  may  be  said  to  comprehend  all 
that  in  this  world  deserves  to  be  cared  for,"  they 
certainly  have  not  lost  their  importance  as  the  great 
issues  of  modern  society  are  more  distinctly  re- 
vealed. 

The  proposition  has  not  lacked  vigorous  support 
with  a  brilliant  class  of  English  writers,  who  shrink 
appalled  from  a  political  tendency  which  they  can 
see  no  way  of  successfully  resisting,  that  the  popular 
movement  of  modern  times,  resting  as  it  does  on  the 
postulate  that  all  men  should  be  equal  so  far  as  the 
laws  can  make  them  so,  reduces  the  individual  to 
impotence  by  making  him  a  hopelessly  feeble  unit 
in  the  presence  of  an  overwhelming  majority.  In 
such  a  plight  it  is  mere  mockery,  we  are  told,  to 
exhort  men  of  superior  parts  to  exercise  an  inde- 
pendent influence.  The  wise  and  the  good  stand  on 
a  level  with  the  foolish  and  the  bad,  and  to  hope 
that  reason  will  rule  in  the  ordering  of  affairs  when 
each  one  is  provided  with  a  vote  and  may  cast  it 
as  he  likes,  is  an  idle  dream.  This  argument  does 
not  apply,  of  course,  to  our  own  experiment  alone, 
but  is  directed  against  a  tendency  which  in  all  so- 
cieties that  claim  to  be  civilized  is  setting  forward 
with  accelerated  force.  It  seems  enough  to  say,  in 
answer,  that  we  are  not  now  in  a  position  to  analyze 
with  accuracy  a  movement  of  such  tremendous  im- 
port. Modern  democracy  is  too  recent  a  phenomenon 
to  admit  of  any  estimate  as  yet  of  the  complex  range 
of  its  social  and  political  and  intellectual  conse- 
quences. It  is  on  the  dead,  not  on  the  living,  that 
the  coroner  holds  his  inquest.  Ancient  society  was 
comparatively  simple  ;  its  phenomena  for  the  most 


48  THE  ALIENATION  OF   THE 

part  admit  of  obvious  explanation  ;  its  completed 
history  allows  us  to  pass  a  confident  judgment  upon 
it  as  a  whole.  Mediaeval  society,  if  less  simple, 
still  turned,  in  its  chief  phases,  on  few  points ;  even 
feudalism,  once  so  perplexed  a  study,  has  yielded  to 
recent  analysis,  and  when  it  arose,  how  it  affected 
the  classes  included  in  its  range,  why  it  came  to  an 
end,  are  questions  about  which  scholars  are  ceasing 
to  dispute.  But  that  great  popular  movement,  which 
is  now  so  clearly  seen  to  have  thrust  its  strong  roots 
down  into  the  Middle  Age,  is  still  in  process  ;  we 
ourselves  are  but  parts  of  it ;  the  terms  of  the  mighty 
equation  are  not  yet  written  out.  It  is  pleasant  to 
fancy  that  we  stand  secure  on  the  rocks  and  gaze  at 
the  mighty  rush  of  the  waters,  — 

"  E  terra  magnum  alterius  spectare  laborem," 

but  it  is  fancy  and  nothing  more.  In  the  flood  of 
phenomena  all  perspective  is  blurred,  and  relations 
of  cause  and  effect  are  hopelessly  mixed.  We  are 
in  danger  of  joining  what  has  only  a  seeming  con- 
nection, and  of  attributing  to  one  class  of  causes 
consequences  that  are  due  wholly  to  another.  No 
country  ever  had  a  more  genial  and  appreciative 
critic  of  its  institutions  than  we  had  in  the  accom- 
plished Frenchman  who  attempted  the  first  philo- 
sophical estimate  of  American  Democracy,  but  how 
crude  and  ludicrous  even,  in  the  light  of  our  later 
experience,  seem  some  of  De  Tocqueville's  most 
elaborate  judgments.  Has  American  Democracy, 
we  may  well  ask,  proved  unequal  to  the  task  of  levy- 
ing taxes,  or  of  raising  armies  ?  De  Tocqueville 
was  impressed,  as  others  who  have  come  among  us 
have  been  impressed,  with  the  lack  of  conspicuous 


EDUCATED    CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  49 

ability  among  our  public  men  ;  but  to  argue  that 
democratic  institutions  are  unfavorable  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  highest  individual  excellence,  be- 
cause men  of  moderate  parts  are  most  commonly- 
selected  for  public  offices,  implies  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  meaning  and  function  of  government  in  a 
democratic  state.  When  it  is  so  confidently  argued 
that  {he  theory  of  political  equality  must  result  in 
mediocrity,  because  it  holds  out  fewer  prizes  to  ex- 
ceptional superiority  in  the  public  service,  it  should 
be  remembered  that  in  other  ways  it  multiplies  the 
incitements  to  effort.  And  even  conceding  that 
the  removal  of  political  restrictions  can  add  nothing 
to  the  intrinsic  force  of  individual  character,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  such  removal  presents  any 
bar  to  the  full  and  varied  development  of  existing 
forces. 

Is  it  not  time  to  have  done  with  what  the  latest 
historian  of  England  terms  "  this  silly  talk  about 
democracy."  Democratic  institutions  are  on  trial  ; 
so  is  modern  society  itself  ;  it  is  quite  too  soon  to 
bring  in  the  verdict.  Of  all  the  reproaches  hurled 
against  the  popular  tendency  of  modern  times  the 
most  ill-grounded,  surely,  is  the  dismal  cry  about 
the  tyranny  of  the  majority.  This  is  one  of  the  es- 
pecial dangers  on  which  De  Tocqueville  dwells  ;  and 
later  writers,  borrowing  the  hint  from  him,  are  never 
weary  of  repeating  that,  overawed  and  intimidated 
by  the  opinion  of  the  unthinking  mass,  all  expres- 
sion of  individual  sentiment  is  stifled,  and  the  intel- 
ligent and  thoughtful  few  are  deterred  from  attempt- 
ing to  wield  the  influence  which  they  ought  to  ex- 
ercise. But  if  in  a  community  where  law  authorizes 
and  protects  the  expression  of  opinion,  any  individ- 

4 


50  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

ual  is  restrained  by  prudential  considerations  from 
promulgating  what  his  reason  recognizes  as  true,  or 
his  conscience  affirms  as  right,  the  true  explana- 
tion must  be  sought  not  in  any  tyranny  of  the  ma- 
jority but  rather  in  the  lack  of  that  "  intrinsic  force" 
on  which  Leslie  Stephen  so  vigorously  insists.  Ev- 
ery fuller  soul,  elected  in  the  great  crises  of  his- 
tory to  lead  the  forlorn  hope  of  the  race,  has  been 
in  a  minority  ;  nay,  the  t  aptain  in  the  most  mar- 
velous revolution  the  world  has  seen  was  in  a  mi- 
nority of  one.  Earnest,  aggressive,  self-forgetful 
minorities  have  been,  in  every  age,  the  conditions 
of  social  progress ;  against  them  the  tyranny  of  the 
majority  has  always  been  ruthlessly  exercised  ;  ex- 
ercised by  arbitrary  power,  —  under  the  forms  of 
law, —  with  the  sanction  of  religion  ;  exercised  with 
the  sword,  the  faggot,  and  the  rack  ;  and  instead  of 
wielding  with  us  an  aggravated  rule,  never  has  the 
power  of  the  majority  been  subject,  in  so  many 
ways,  to  checks  and  bounds  as  under  the  institu- 
tions which  an  English  lord  chancellor  has  described 
as  the  very  greatest  refinement  of  polity  to  which 
any  age  has  ever  given  birth.  And  never  too,  it 
may  be  truly  said,  has  the  will  of  the  minority  been 
more  outspoken  than  with  us.  The  crowning  event 
in  our  hundred  years  of  history,  the  turning  point 
in  our  great  struggle  for  national  integrity,  was  the 
result  of  a  public  sentiment,  created,  shaped,  car- 
ried to  its  triumphant  issue  by  a  persistent  and  res- 
olute minority  ! 

"  For  Gods  delight  in  Gods, 
And  thrust  the  weak  aside." 

An  explanation  of  the  abstinence  of  our  educated 
class  from  politics,  more  nearly  connected  with  or 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  5  I 

distinctive  polity,  has  been  discovered  by  Mr.  Bage- 
hot  in  the  difference  between  a  cabiaet  and  a  pres- 
idential system.  To  this  difference,  he  claims,  must 
also  be  attributed  the  lack  of  any  public  opinion  in 
America  finished  and  chastened  like  that  of  Eng- 
land. With  the  English,  attention  to  politics  means 
a  real  direction  of  affairs,  the  nation  making  itself 
felt  with  effective  force  at  the  determining  crises  of 
party  conflicts.  Whether  the  ministry  shall  go  out 
or  remain  in  is  decided  by  a  parliamentary  division, 
and  on  this  decision  public  opinion  outside  of  Par- 
liament, the  secret,  pervading  disposition  of  society, 
exercises  a  potent  influence.  The  nation  is  stirred 
to  the  expression  of  an  opinion  because  it  realizes 
that  its  opinion  is  decisive.  The  sympathy  remains 
at  all  times  close  and  vital  between  public  senti- 
ment and  the  actual  governing  power.  But  with 
ourselves  precisely  the  reverse  of  this  obtains.  Save 
in  the  instant  of  exercising  the  elective  franchise 
the  nation  has  no  decisive  influence  ;  in  that  su- 
preme effort  its  vital  forces  are  exhausted,  and  it 
must  wait  an  appointed  time  until  its  periodic  func- 
tion is  restored.  Hence  it  is  not  incited  to  keep  its 
judgment  fresh,  nor  is  its  opinion  disciplined  by 
continuous  exercise.  Our  congressional  disputes 
are  "  prologues  without  a  play  ; "  they  involve  no 
catastrophe  ;  the  prize  of  power  is  not  a  legislative 
gift.  As  a  natural  result,  men  of  mark  are  not 
strongly  tempted  to  secure  seats  in  a  deliberative 
body  when  they  have  only  power  to  make  a  speech, 
when  they  are  neither  stimulated  by  prospect  of  in- 
fluence nor  chastened  by  dread  of  responsibility. 
And  when  public  opinion  itself  is  not  subject  to 
constant  modification,  those  who  shape  public  opinion 


52  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

are  deprived  of  the  most  positive  incitement  to  ef- 
fort.    The  results  are  too  distant  and  uncertain. 

To  much  of  this  reasoning  it  is  enough  to  say 
that  while  the  term  of  office  of  the  administration 
is  fixed  by  law,  and  so  far  our  system  is  open  to  the 
reproach  of  being  inelastic,  yet  the  term  is  so  brief 
that  the  nation  hardly  recovers  from  the  excitement 
of  one  presidential  election  before  it  is  plunged  into 
another ;  that  the  choice  of  the  chief  magistrate  is 
only  one  of  numberless  ways  in  which  the  elective 
franchise  is  exercised  ;  that  congressional  debates, 
if  they  have  not  the  effect  on  the  instant  to  change 
the  administration,  do  have  a  direct  and  often  a 
controlling  influence  upon  its  policy  ;  and  that  the 
national  legislature,  so  far  from  being  unaffected  by 
public  opinion  out  of  doors,  is  often  controlled  by  it 
to  a  deplorable  extent.  That  in  the  agony  of  a  great 
ministerial  crisis  a  parliamentary  debate  fixes  pub- 
lic attention,  as  it  cannot  be  fixed  by  a  speech  in 
Congress,  must  be  conceded  ;  but  that  such  an  eager 
strife  for  power  and  place  disciplines  and  instructs 
public  opinion  any  more  effectually  than  our  more 
rigid  method  is  an  assertion  that  seems  destitute  of 
all  sound  support.  And  still  less  am  I  disposed  to 
admit  that  the  participation  of  our  educated  class  in 
politics  would  be  sensibly  promoted  by  the  removal 
of  the  strongly  accented  distinction  between  the 
executive  and  the  legislative  branch,  which  consti- 
tutes so  cardinal  a  feature  of  our  constitution,  and 
by  making  the  tenure  of  the  highest  administrative 
office  directly  dependent  on  the  will  of  a  congres- 
sional majority.  English  experience  does  not  war- 
rant the  expectation  that  public  life  would  be  ren- 
dered more  attractive  to  men  of  nice  moral  instincts  ; 


EDUCATED    CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  53 

and  while  the  immediate  prospect  of  great  place, 
without  doubt,  supplies  a  most  powerful  stimulus  to 
effort,  it  can  yet,  under  ordinary  conditions,  address 
itself  to  only  a  limited  class.  The  great  body  of 
educated  men  must  be  inspired  by  a  worthier  mo- 
tive. 

While,  however,  I  cannot  concede  to  Mr.  Bagehot 
that  the  chief  explanation  of  the  alienation  of  our 
educated  men  from  politics  is  to  be  found  in  the 
mere  mode  of  administration,  I  think  it  must  be 
admitted  that  there  are  certain  features  of  our  sys- 
tem which  have  tended,  in  no  small  degree,  to 
weaken  the  hold  of  public  interests  upon  some  of 
the  more  earnest  and  disinterested  of  this  class. 
Our  system  is  one  of  carefully  limited  powers,  from 
which  is  excluded  the  larger  share  of  those  ques- 
tions which  appeal  to  the  deepest  convictions  of 
mankind.  It  sprang  from  political  needs,  and  was 
carefully  fashioned  to  compass  certain  definite  and 
practical  aims.  But  since  that  day  when  the  con- 
quering Franks  conferred  temporal  dominion  on  the 
successor  of  the  fisherman,  the  questions  which  have 
allured  the  most  generous  and  enthusiastic  spirits 
to  the  field  of  politics  have  grown  out  of  the  dis- 
puted relations  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers. 
These  commanding  problems  for  a  time  turned  Dante 
from  poetry  and  Occam  from  theology  ;  and  if,  in 
the  press  of  modern  interests,  they  have  ceased  to 
reign  supreme,  they  have  still  given  to  modern  Eu- 
ropean politics  most  of  its  noblest  impulses.  They 
have  provoked  the  most  profound  inquiries,  the  most 
disinterested  effort,  the  most  unselfish  surrender  to 
magnanimous  if  not  seldom  mistaken  and  impracti- 
cable ends.     They  have  drawn  into  the  heated  arena 


54  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

of  politics  not  a  few  whom  only  the  most  sacred  al- 
legiance to  ideal  principle  could  have  tempted  to  a 
public  career.  On  the  other  hand  our  politics,  for 
the  past  hundred  years,  have  been  bereft  of  these 
ennobling  impulses,  and  political  life,  of  necessity, 
has  lost  no  small  part  of  the  attraction  which  it  has 
furnished,  in  other  lands,  to  the  purest,  most  earnest, 
most  cultivated  minds.  It  has  not,  for  example,  been 
within  the  scope  of  our  American  institutions  to 
produce  such  a  man  as  the  late  Count  Montalem- 
bert,  coupling  the  courage  and  address  of  a  great 
orator  with  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  a  monk,  de- 
lighting to  look  at  politics  as  primarily  the  means 
of  realizing  spiritual  results,  a  genuine  ftls  des  croisfc 
amid  the  fierce  debates  of  the  French  Assembly  ; 
nor  such  a  man  as  Gladstone,  faulty  perhaps  as  a 
mere  party  leader,  but  treading  with  no  unequal 
step  after  Pitt  and  Peel  as  a  parliamentary  debater, 
and  surpassing  both,  in  the  comprehensiveness  of  his 
range  and  the  earnestness  of  his  moral  conviction, 
habitually  looking  at  politics  in  the  light  of  man's 
largest  relations  as  an  immortal  being,  disowned  by 
Oxford  when  most  truly  faithful  to  Oxford's  earliest 
traditions.  That  memorable  measure  which  taxed 
his  distinctive  capabilities  as  an  original  legislator, 
and  elicited  the  most  transcendent  exhibition  of  his 
oratory,  was  a  problem  with  which  no  American 
statesman  could  be  called  to  deal.  And  who  sup- 
poses, for  a  moment,  that  the  ordinary  discipline 
which  a  public  career  with  us  supplies  would  qualify 
one  of  our  party  leaders,  after  laying  down  the  cares 
of  office,  to  discuss,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  has  recently 
discussed,  the  questions  to  which  the  novel  assump- 
tions of  the  Vatican  have  given  such  added  signifi- 


EDUCATED    CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  55 

cance.  If  the  separation  of  church  and  state  that 
obtains  with  us  has  helped  religion,  it  has  certainly- 
narrowed  the  range  and  weakened  the  motive  of 
political  action. 

But  not  only  was  our  government  established  as 
one  of  expressly  limited  powers ;  very  soon  after  it 
went  into  operation  a  political  thesis  came  to  be  gen- 
erally accepted  which  gave  this  principle  a  wider  and 
more  pernicious  application.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century  the  maxim  was  eagerly  accepted 
and  enforced,  that  the  functions  of  government^in 
general,  ought  to  be  confined  within  the  narrowest 
limits,  and  directed  only  to  the  most  utilitarian  ends. 
Since  the  adoption  of  our  federal  constitution  two 
distinct  political  tendencies  have  shown  themselves 
among  us, — two  tendencies  radically  distinct  in  ori- 
gin and  spirit,  yet  singularly  tending  to  the  same 
result.  One  was  a  strong  infusion  of  the  politics  of 
sentiment,  borrowed  from  Rousseau  by  Mr.  Jefferson, 
coloring  our  famous  Declaration,  and  proving  itself 
through  all  our  history  by  a  passion  for  abstract  max- 
ims of  equality  and  liberty,  by  a  somewhat  ill-regu- 
lated zeal  in  promoting  whatever  schemes  of  social 
and  political  reform,  and  by  an  undiscriminating 
sympathy  with  revolutionary  movements  throughout 
the  world.  The  marked  characteristic  of  this  tend- 
ency has  been  contempt  for  the  teachings  of  tradition 
and  experience,  and  a  confident  disposition  to  solve 
each  new  problem  simply  upon  its  own  merits.  Po- 
litical action,  controlled  and  guided  by  such  maxims, 
can  have  but  slender  attraction  for  the  educated 
class,  whose  very  training  implies  respect  for  prece- 
dent, who  shrink  with  instinctive  suspicion  from  a 
sentimental  apprehension  of  political  or  moral  truths, 


56  THE   ALIENATION  OE   THE 

and  who  aie  accustomed  to  value  liberty  simply  as  a 
means  to  an  end.  If  by  liberty  be  meant  merely  the 
removal  of  restraint,  —  the  sense  in  which  some  of 
its  most  famous  advocates  in  our  time  seem  to  un- 
derstand it, — it  will  be  long  before  men  of  sound 
culture  can  be  brought  to  give  it  a  very  enthusiastic 
countenance.  But  by  the  side  of  this  sentimental 
conception  of  political  rights  there  has  existed  an- 
other tendency  which  in  actual  practice  has  usurped 
the  control  of  public  policy.  The  twin  gods  of  our 
political  Pantheon  have  been  Rousseau  and  Bentham. 
To  these  two  masters  all  our  political  theories  since 
we  became  an  independent  nation  may  be  traced. 
For  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  utilitarian  phi- 
losophy as  an  abstract  code  of  morals,  it  has  unques- 
tionably stamped  itself  upon  our  time  as  a  practical 
rule  of  legislation.  Had  this  rule  always  been  ap- 
plied in  the  enlarged  definition  given  it  by  Mill  its 
results  might  have  been  less  deplorable  ;  but  the 
maxim  so  emphatically  reiterated  by  the  founder  of 
the  school,  that  government  is  a  necessary  evil,  the 
legislator  being  simply  a  physician  summoned  to 
wrestle  with  a  disease,  worked  a  fatal  paralysis  of 
political  opinion.  The  state  was  unclothed  of  all 
that  gave  it  authority  and  majesty  ;  politics,  surren- 
dered to  mere  expediency,  were  hopelessly  divorced 
from  the  restraints  of  right  and  duty,  and  high  sound- 
ing declarations  of  zeal  for  the  general  good  came, 
too  often,  to  cover  the  vulgar  conflict  of  private  and 
selfish  interests.  Here,  too,  so  far  as  concerned  the 
participation  of  the  educated  class,  the  same  result 
inevitably  followed.  Men  whose  deepest  solicitude 
was  for  ideal  and  spiritual  ends  shrunk  from  what 
seemed  so  much  a  struggle  for  mere  personal  advan- 
tages. 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  57 

But,  without  doubt,  the  consideration  that  has 
weighed  most  in  chilling  the  interest  of  our  educated 
class  in  politics  is  connected  far  less  with  the  theory 
of  our  government  than  with  its  practical  working. 
It  is  the  wide-spread  conviction  that  in  the  actual 
administration  of  such  affairs  as  fall  within  its  lim- 
ited range,  culture,  training,  intellectual  equipment 
of  any  kind,  instead  of  being  valued  as  essential  con- 
ditions of  efficient  public  service,  are  rather  hin- 
drances to  a  political  career.  It  was  the  evident 
expectation  of  the  framers  of  our  system,  that  the 
working  of  the  elective  principle  would  result  in  the 
elimination  of  the  best  elements  of  the  body  politic  ; 
and  that  eminent  fitness  would  be  the  recognized 
test  for  responsible  position.  As  we  are  forced  sadly 
to  confess,  this  hope  has  been  disappointed,  and  our 
government  has  come  to  embody,  not  the  highest, 
but  the  average  intelligence,  and  to  hold  out  its 
highest  prizes  to  adroit  management  rather  than  to 
admitted  desert.  That  the  majority  of  those  who 
formed  the  educated  class  in  this  country  when  our 
constitution  went  into  operation  looked  with  distrust 
upon  the  experiment  is  a  fact  familiar  to  all  stu- 
dents of  our  history  ;  but  could  they  have  foreseen 
the  inevitable  modification  which  that  experiment 
was  destined  to  undergo,  could  they  have  foreseen 
how  much  more  powerful  that  popular  control  which 
they  so  much  dreaded  was  destined  to  become,  their 
distrust  would  have  changed  to  despair ;  over  the 
portal  of  the  structure  which  they  reared  with  so 
much  pains    they  would   have  carved  the  ominous 


warning  — 


"  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  in  !  " 


58  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

And  yet,  if  we  fairly  considered  it,  this  modifica- 
tion was  but  the  logical  working  out  of  the  primary 
postulate  in  which  our  whole  political  system  rested, 
and,  if  we  take  a  just  view  of  that  system,  will  fur- 
nish no  ground  whatever  for  the  suspicion  that  we 
have  wandered  from  the  normal  path  of  our  political 
development.  It  is  a  modification  that,  after  all, 
has  lessened  rather  in  appearance  than  in  reality 
the  real  influence  of  the  educated  class.  It  fur- 
nishes no  ground  either  for  indifference  or  discour- 
agement ;  for  if  the  visible  prizes  of  political  success 
lie  less  within  their  grasp,  the  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  a  permanent  and  controlling  influence 
have  been  in  no  way  diminished. 

Let  us  concede,  for  the  argument,  the  utmost  that 
the  most  dismal  of  our  political  Cassandras  have  as- 
serted, that  a  representative  government,  under  dem- 
ocratic rule,  must  inevitably  conform  to  the  level  of 
the  majority  which  it  represents  ;  and  conceding, 
too,  what  in  this  whole  discussion  has  been  strangely 
assumed  as  a  thing  of  course,  that  the  majority  in 
any  community  will  always  prove  themselves  less 
capable  and  less  intelligent  in  the  direction  of  affairs 
than  the  minority,  it  still  would  by  no  means  follow 
that  under  institutions  like  ours  an  educated  minor- 
ity would  be  finally  cut  off  from  a  wholesome  par- 
ticipation in  political  duties.  Those  who  reason  in 
this  way  reason  from  precedents  that  do  not  apply 
to  our  condition,  and  mistake  trie  function  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  significance  of  public  offices  under 
a  system  where  the  representative  principle  is  al- 
lowed full  play.  For  the  gist  of  the  complaint  that 
educated  men  with  us  are  debarred  from  exercising 
their  legitimate  influence  in   politics,  for  the  most 


EDUCATED    CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  59 

part  means  simply  that  they  are  not  selected  to  fill 
public  offices,  and  so  cannot  make  themselves  felt 
in  the  ordinary  manipulations  of  the  political  ma- 
chine. The  complaint  is  well  grounded,  and  the 
grievance  complained  of  is  a  real  grievance ;  yet 
does  it  have  the  significance  which  has  been  attrib- 
uted to  it  ?  May  not  what  has  been  so  persistently 
urged  in  proof  of  our  political  decline  be  a  passing 
but  inevitable  phase  of  our  development?  But  ex- 
cluding other  considerations  that  here  suggest  them- 
selves, the  position  on  which  I  wish  to  fasten  your 
attention  is  simply  this  :  that  under  a  strictly  rep- 
resentative government,  like  our  own,  public  func- 
tions, even  when  regarded  from  a  strictly  political 
point  of  view,  are  less  significant  than  under  sys- 
tems where  power  is  possessed,  not  as  a  trust,  but 
as  an  estate,  and  hence  that  exclusion  from  a  tech- 
nical public  career  carries  with  it  far  less  sacrifice 
of  real  influence. 

The  framers  of  our  constitution  were  not  seeking 
to  carry  out  any  abstract  formulas  ;  their  simple  aim 
was  to  set  up  a  compact  and  well-articulated  con- 
stitutional republic.  Yet  while  they  had  in  mind  a 
system  rather  than  a  theory,  and  restrained  public 
opinion  by  checks  and  guarantees,  they  built  on  ra- 
tional foundations  and  recognized  a  principle  the 
full  scope  of  which  they  did  not  themselves,  per- 
haps, suspect.  In  this  recognition  lay  the  essential 
originality  of  their  contrivance,  and  the  sole  claim 
of  their  labors  to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
political  experiments.  In  the  governments  of  the 
Old  World  the  administration  was  the  state.  The 
famous  maxim  of  Louis  XIV.  was  no  empty  boast, 
but  the  terse  formulating  of  a  maxim  which  Bossuet 


60  THE  ALIENATION  OF   THE 

had  elaborately  vindicated  as  the  teaching  of  Holy- 
Writ.  In  the  purely  modern  monarchy  which  the 
unscrupulous  genius  of  Frederic  erected  upon  force 
the  maxim  was  as  fully  recognized  ;  and  even  in  the 
mixed  system  which  Walpole  and  Grenville  adminis- 
tered, hereditary  monarchy  and  hereditary  peerage 
remained,  in  theory  at  least,  remote  from  any  pop- 
ular control.  But  our  system,  whatever  the  artificial 
checks  it  sought  to  interpose,  rested,  at  last,  in  the 
explicit  recognition  of  one  single,  homogeneous, 
sovereign  power.  This  power  lay  behind  the  legis- 
lature, behind  the  executive,  behind  the  constitution 
itself  ;  for  no  principle  can  be  plainer  than  that 
so  strongly  insisted  on  by  Hobbes, —  and  which 
Austin  has  repeated  after  Hobbes,  —  that  sovereign 
power  is,  in  its  nature,  incapable  of  legal  limitation. 
Resting  thus,  as  our  institutions  do,  both  in  theory 
and  fact,  on  popular  will,  it  is  true  of  us  in  a  sense 
more  complete  than  it  has  been  possible  to  affirm  it 
of  any  former  political  society,  that  it  is  Public 
Opinion  which  rules  :  that  all-powerful  judge,  which, 
in  the  language  of  the  accomplished  prince  who  is 
writing  so  impartially  the  story  of  our  great  civil 
strife,  "possesses,  perhaps,  the  caprices  but  not  the 
fatal  infatuation  of  despots."  With  us  government 
is  the  mere  function  through  which  the  public  will 
is  made  efficient,  not  directing  that  will,  but  created 
and  determined  by  it.  Washington  himself  most 
clearly  recognized  this  principle,  when,  in  i793»  he 
wrote :  "  I  only  wish,  whilst  I  am  a  servant  of  the 
public,  to  know  the  will  of  my  masters,  that  I  may 
govern  myself  accordingly  ;"  words  of  peculiar  em- 
phasis as  coming  from  such  a  man.  It  is  a  com* 
monplace  remark  that  a  leading  tendency  of  modern 


EDUCATED   CLASS   FROM  POLITICS.  6 1 

civilization  is  to  make  the  influence  of  society  greater 
and  the  influence  of  government  relatively  less  ;  but 
it  would  be  a  more  accurate  statement  that  govern- 
ment has  become  more  the  agency  through  which  the 
power  of  society  is  wielded,  the  relation  of  the  two  be- 
ing not  antagonistic,  but  harmonious.  According  to 
this  view,  government  should  receive,  not  give,  the 
impulse.  That  government  alone  is  strong  which 
marches  at  the  head  of  popular  convictions.  Never 
was  the  real  strength  of  our  own  government  so 
proudly  demonstrated  as  in  the  dark  crisis  when  the 
conspiracy  against  it  first  revealed  the  mighty  force  of 
the  national  sentiment.  One  reason,  doubtless,  why 
the  political  discussions  of  the  past  generation  have 
lost  so  much  of  their  interest,  is,  that  they  were  so 
much  concerned  with  the  mere  form  under  which 
the  masking  spirit  hides  itself,  and  reached  so 
seldom  the  deeper  sources  of  national  life.  And 
one  of  the  most  precious  results  of  our  late  struggle 
has  been  to  cure  us  of  the  habit  of  looking  so  ex- 
clusively at  the  mere  formal  constitution,  and  turn- 
ing our  gaze  to  those  deeper  conditions  of  national 
unity  and  strength  that  lie  in  the  great  providential 
dispositions  of  our  history.  Let  us  not  call  it  a  vic- 
tory of  the  North  over  the  South,  but  rather  the  vin- 
dication of  our  formal  law  by  the  great  facts  of  our 
historical  development.  In  this  truer,  profounder 
conception  of  the  state,  as  anterior  to  the  most 
sacred  and  authoritative  expressions  of  its  will,  we 
have  at  once  the  right  explanation  of  our  political 
system,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  encouraging 
exhibition  of  the  true  sphere  of  the  educated  class. 
For  it  follows  that  the  real  governing  class  are  not, 
and  are  not  meant  to  be,  the  mere  agents  of  admin- 


62  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

istration,  but  those  on  whom  rests  the  responsibil- 
ity of  creating  and  informing  that  sovereign  public 
opinion,  —  of  which,  in  a  free  community,  the  ad- 
ministration is  the  mere  mouth-piece  and  attorney. 

What  does  it  matter  that  this  public  opiuion  can 
only  make  itself  efficient  through  the  action  of  the 
majority?  In  a  government  by  discussion,  to  bor- 
row a  favorite  phrase  of  Mr.  Bagehot,  the  type  to- 
ward which  all  civilized  states  are  tending,  and  of 
which  our  own  presents  the  most  perfect  example, 
what  other  method  could  be  introduced  ?  Lord 
Bacon,  who  denounces  an  appeal  to  the  majority  as 
the  worst  of  all  tests  in  the  decision  of  purely  intel- 
lectual questions,  admits  that  in  politics  and  religion 
it  is  the  safest  rule.  It  was  the  voice  of  the  majority 
which  fixed  the  articles  of  Catholic  faith  at  Nice, 
and  which  admitted  the  Bill  of  Rights  as  part  of 
the  British  constitution.  It  is  no  modern  device,  as 
some  would  seem  to  think,  but  was  recognized  by 
the  Greeks  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  corporate 
political  action,  which  so  careful  a  writer  as  the  late 
Cornewall  Lewis  terms  the  most  important  improve- 
ment introduced  into  practical  politics  since  the 
dawn  of  civilization.  All  admit  that  the  contrivance 
is  defective  ;  but  when  the  ultimate  decision  is  made 
to  rest,  not  with  any  single  individual  but  with  a 
collective  body,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  other  ar- 
rangement could  be  substituted  for  it ;  and  the 
phrase  "rule  of  the  masses"  will  lose  much  of  its 
repugnant  meaning  if  we  allow  it  to  be  divested  of 
associations  which  it  has  inherited  from  other  ages, 
and  from  conditions  of  society  widely  differing  from 
our  own.  In  the  old  Latin  proverb  it  is  not  inaptly 
termed  argumentum  pessimi  ;  for  a  Roman  populace, 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  63 

at  least  in  Seneca's  time,  was  compacted  of  every 
pernicious  element.  Even  as  the  phrase  is  now- 
used  in  most  European  countries,  it  has  no  meaning 
here ;  for,  happily,  we  have  no  class  sentenced  by 
inexorable  social  distinctions  to  hopeless  poverty 
and  ignorance,  The  exceptions  which  a  few  of  our 
larger  cities  furnish  are  not  products  of  our  civiliza- 
tion. The  majority  with  us  is  a  majority  not  in- 
deed of  high  culture,  not  always  of  wise  discern- 
ment, not  exempt  from  the  influence  of  prejudice, 
but  singularly  open  to  new  impressions,  of  flexible 
opinions,  of  ever-fluctuating  social  consequence,  and 
never  reluctant  to  recognize  the  application  of  a 
principle.  It  surely  does  not  raise  the  great  histo- 
rian of  Athenian  democracy  in  our  estimation  when 
we  learn  that  in  his  last  days  his  faith  in  free  institu- 
tions was  shaken  because  the  majority  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  showed  such  tenacious  fidelity  to  the 
great  principles  on  which  all  free  governments  must 
rest. 

In  asserting  so  strongly  that  the  distinctive  polit- 
ical function  of  the  educated  class,  in  a  community 
governed  by  discussion,  is  discharged  less  at  the 
ballot-box,  or  in  the  technical  duties  of  administra- 
tion, than  in  shaping  public  opinion,  let  me  not  seem 
to  argue  for  the  release  of  any  portion  of  the  body 
politic  from  their  personal  obligations  as  citizens.  I 
am  not  unmindful  of  the  benefit  that  results  from  the 
direct  participation  of  every  educated  man  in  poli- 
tics,—  the  more  generous  direction  of  political  ac- 
tion, the  elevation  of  political  discussion,  the  whole- 
some correction  of  political  methods  which  his 
presence  ought  to  imply.  I  do  not  mean  that  the 
educated  class  should  dwell  apart ;  on  the  contrary 


64  7WE   ALIENATION  OF   THE 

I  hail  it  as  a  cheering  sign  when  the  representatives 
of  this  class  replace  in  our  political  machinery  the 
mere  party  politician.  But  I  am  not  the  less  per- 
suaded that  the  supreme  service  of  the  educated 
man  is  rather  indirect  than  direct, — rendered  less 
in  his  limited  capacity  as  a  constituent  part  of  the 
body  politic  than  in  his  broad  and  comprehensive 
relations  as  a  member  of  society.  I  would  not  utter 
a  word  to  detain  him  from  the  primary  meeting  or 
the  political  convention  ;  but  in  neither  of  these  can 
his  distinguishing  parts  be  called  into  most  efficient 
play.  In  the  primary  meeting  he  is  too  often  sur- 
prised by  a  packed  majority  ;  on  the  floor  of  the 
convention  he  finds  himself  thwarted  by  the  tricks 
of  the  wily  parliamentary  tactician.  It  is  only  in  the 
indirect  and  slower  process  of  appealing  to  public 
opinion  that  the  ultimate  vindication  of  truth  and 
justice  is  assured  ;  and  it  is  precisely  in  his  fitness 
to  make  this  appeal  that  the  educated  man  —  the 
man  educated  in  the  ample  sense  in  which  I  have 
defined  the  term  — stands  head  and  shoulders  above 
his  fellows.  He  is  a  spiritual  power  in  the  state  that 
no  factions  can  outwit,  that  no  majorities  can  over- 
whelm. He  makes  himself  felt  in  a  sphere  where 
the  vulgar  conditions  of  political  action  no  longer 
operate,  — 

"  No  private,  but  a  person  raised 
With  strength  sufficient  and  command  from  heaven." 

And  how  false  to  history  their  view  who  hold  that 
in  a  democratic  community,  or,  in  other  words,  in  a 
community  governed  by  reason  and  discussion,  such 
a  man  can  be  stripped  of  any  legitimate  influence  ! 
I  will  not  appeal  to  the  familiar  and  splendid  argu- 
ment  of  antiquity, — for   it    may   be   objected   that 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POIJ'I ICS.  65 

political  equality  then  invariably  had  slavery  as  its 
corner-stone.  —  but  will  limit  myself  to  modern 
examples.  Where,  let  me  ask,  did  the  earliest 
impulses  of  distinctive  modern  civilization  show 
themselves  but  in  the  democratic  communes  of  the 
Middle  Age  ?  The  movement  towards  equality  of 
classes  here  initiated  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
great  mediaeval  Renaissance.  What,  indeed,  were 
the  famous  mediaeval  universities,  in  their  formal 
organization,  but  applications  of  that  fruitful  prin- 
ciple of  corporate  action  which  the  free  towns  pro- 
tected against  the  encroachments  of  feudalism  ?  The 
venerable  terms  "  university  "  and  "  college  "  are 
simply  survivals  of  the  far  more  ancient  municipal 
fraternities.  Bologna  and  Paris  and  Oxford  were, 
in  fact,  free  commonwealths,  creations  throughout 
of  a  popular  impulse,  memorable  protests  against 
the  isolation  of  man  from  man.  Macaulay  has 
noted  as  an  inconsistency  in  Milton,  that  while  his 
opinions  were  democratic  his  imagination  delighted 
to  revel  amid  the  illusions  of  aristocratic  society : 
alleging  in  proof  the  contrast  between  the  Treatises 
on  Prelacy  and  the  exquisite  lines  on  ecclesiastical 
architecture  in  //  Penseroso.  But  the  instincts  of 
the  poet  were  right  ;  there  was  no  discord  whatever 
between  his  reason  and  his  taste.  The  most  distinc- 
tive products  of  mediaeval  architecture,  —  those  soar- 
ing spires,  those  tranquil  fronts  of  fretted  stone  that 
hush  the  murmuring  surge  of  the  thronged  market- 
place, those 

"  Storied  windows,  richly  dight, 
Casting  a  dim,  religious  light,"  — 

all  had  a  democratic  origin.     The  long-drawn  aisles 
of  Chartres,  of  Rouen,  of  Amiens,  of  Beauvais,  the 

5 


66  THE   ALIENATION  OF   THE 

vast  structures  in  which  the  common  people  could 
assemble  around  the  episcopal  throne,  were  popular 
protests  against  monastic  and  baronial  exclusiveness. 
The  cloister  had  no  longer  the  monopoly  of  art. 
Investigation  and  experiment  were  substituted  for 
tradition.  The  pointed  style  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, in  which  the  architectural  taste  and  structural 
skill  of  the  mediaeval  builders  were  united  in  their 
consummate  perfectness,  was  not  an  ecclesiastical 
and  aristocratic  but  a  lay  and  democratic  style.  Its 
novel  and  surpassing  forms  were  direct  embodiments 
of  the  new  aspirations  throbbing  in  lay  society. 
The  laity  alone,  from  their  readiness  to  adopt  ra- 
tional methods,  were  competent  to  execute  these 
surprising  works.  Viollet-le-Duc  does  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  the  period  included  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  is  the  most  instructive  in  the 
history  of  art,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  was  the 
expression  of  a  movement  provoked  by  the  lay  spirit 
acting  against  tradition  ;  and  the  lay  spirit  of  that 
age  was  simply  another  name  for  the  spirit  of  the 
free  towns. 

I  would  not  depreciate  the  debt  we  owe  to  the 
ecclesiastical  and  the  aristocratic  institutions  of  the 
Middle  Age.  Who  can  forget  the  monastic  scholar, 
feeding  the  lamp  of  learning  through  the  dark  night 
of  ignorance  and  barbarism  ?  Who  can  refuse  to 
recognize  the  seeds  of  generous  and  polite  sentiment 
hid  under  the  rough  crust  of  feudal  society  ?  Who 
of  us  has  not  felt  the  romantic  charm  of  a  life  so 
removed  from  anything  with  which  we  come  in  con- 
tact in  this  new  world  ?  I  recall  the  rapture  of  old 
vacation  rambles  by  famous  streams  where 

"  A  splendor  falls  on  castle  walls, 
And  snowy  summits  old  in  story," 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  67 

when  every  thrilled  sense  and  spell  of  song  and  le- 
gend was  quickened  by  the  companionship  of  one 
who  ranked  with  the  noblest  of  those  whom  yonder 
walls  commemorate,  but  still  I  cannot  forget  that 
the  intellectual  revival  of  Europe  received  its  most 
powerful  impulse,  not  from  the  priest,  nor  from  the 
noble,  but  from  the  citizen.  It  was  from  social  con- 
ditions essentially  like  our  own,  that  modern  civili- 
zation sprang,  and  when  we  are  sneered  at  as  a 
gigantic  middle-class  experiment,  when  we  are  told 
that  the  theory  of  equality  on  which  our  institutions 
rest  can  result  only  in  the  dismal  mediocrity  of 
Chinese  civilization,  in  the  unbroken  level  of  a  West- 
ern prairie,  let  us  call  to  mind  the  cheering  words 
of  Schiller,  that  the  creator  of  modern  culture  was 
the  middle  class.  If  the  past  has  any  lesson  to 
teach  us  on  this  point  it  is  the  lesson  of  encourage- 
ment and  hope.  If  we  have  anything  to  learn  from 
experience,  it  is,  before  all  else,  the  lesson  that 
when  political  institutions  rest  on  public  opinion, 
when  the  final  appeal  lies  to  the  reason  and  intelli- 
gence of  men,  when,  above  all,  the  great  majority  are 
prepared  by  a  widely  diffused  common  education  to 
entertain  this  appeal,  to  pass  a  judgment  on  the  great 
issues  continually  brought  before  them,  the  educated 
class,  the  shapers  and  instructors  of  public  opinion, 
sit  on  a  throne  of  state  beside  which  the  common 
seat  of  kings  seems  idle  pomp ! 

With  this  interpretation  of  the  distinctive  sphere 
of  the  educated  class,  how  enlarged  the  scope  of 
their  influence.  In  its  practical  operation  so  much 
more  moral  than  legal,  that  influence  is  no  longer 
fettered  by  the  limitations  which  the  mere  form  of 
government  imposes.     Foi   the  primary  relation  of 


63  THE   ALIENATION  OF   THE 

the  educated  man  is  not  to  the  technical  duties 
of  the  citizen,  but  to  the  whole  life  of  the  nation. 
His  hand  may  seldom  touch  the  visible  cranks  and 
levers,  but  he  calls  into  action  the  vital  forces  by 
which  the  vast  engine  of  state  is  kept  in  motion. 
He  sweeps  over  a  wide  range  of  questions  with 
which  the  mere  politician  never  comes  in  contact. 
The  laws  may  assign  bounds  to  political  action,  but 
they  can  interpose  no  check  to  the  operation  of  pub- 
lic opinion  ;  they  are  but  mile-stones  that  mark  so- 
cial and  political  progress.  In  a  representative  sys- 
tem the  formal  constitution  must  conform  to  the 
growth  of  public  opinion,  for  this  is  the  wisdom  by 
which  the  house  is  builded,  by  which  its  seven  pil- 
lars must  be  hewn  out.  To  the  bar  of  public  opin- 
ion, the  august  tribunal  of  public  reason,  all  ques- 
tions that  affect  man  in  his  relations  with  his  fellow 
man  may  be  brought.  The  contrast  between  the 
dreary  stagnation  of  a  despotism  and  the  animating 
stir  of  a  free  state  is  simply  the  result  of  the  princi- 
ple that  a  free,  and  above  all,  a  representative  gov- 
ernment must  be  a  progressive  realization  of  jdeas. 
Its  existence  is  an  existence  of  conflict  and  en- 
deavor ;  it  implies  strenuous  service,  and  imposes 
inexorable  responsibilities.  But  while  the  form  of 
government  in  a  free  state  of  necessity  is  plastic, 
yet  as  the  life  of  the  nation  is  continuous,  its  pres- 
ent action  must  have  constant  reference  to  its  pre- 
vious history.  The  conditions  of  healthy  growth 
are  violated  if  at  any  time  it  be  rudely  uprooted 
from  its  own  past.  In  what  line  of  amendment  it 
may  wisely  move  must  be  decided  from  its  own 
traditions,  and  it  is  especially  in  the  wise  inter- 
pretation and  useful  application  of  these  traditions 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  69 

that  the  influence  of  an  educated  class  makes  itself 
felt. 

As  thus  dealing  with  ideas  rather  than  with  insti- 
tutions, with  the  essential  life  of  the  nation  rather 
than  with  its  mere  machinery  of  administration,  the 
educated  class  in  a  free  state  renders  its  most  ines- 
timable service  as  the  exponent  and  upholder  of 
those  spiritual  forces  on  which  society  ultimately 
rests.  And  here  we  touch  truths  of  vital  moment. 
Though  the  maxim  of  Winthrop  be  no  longer  true, 
in  any  literal  application,  that  the  civil  state  is  reared 
out  of  the  churches,  yet  the  principle  is  eternally 
and  unchangeably  true,  that  in  the  deeper  life  of  the 
nation  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  can  never  be 
divided.  The  mere  government  may  be  secular,  but 
the  state  is  built  on  everlasting  moral  foundations. 
We  may  do  away  with  an  established  church,  but 
we  can  never  emancipate  ourselves  from  the  re- 
straints and  obligations  of  Christian  civilization ; 
they  are  part  of  our  history,  they  are  inwrought  into 
our  being,  we  cannot  deny  them  without  destroying 
our  identity  as  a  people  !  For  in  its  deepest  analy- 
sis the  state  is  a  moral  person  ;  in  no  other  way 
could  it  serve  as  the  agent  and  minister  of  that  be- 
neficent Providence  by  which  history  is  invested 
with  a  moral  order,  and  rendered  luminous  with  an 
increasing  purpose.  However  in  common  and  lim- 
ited transactions  we  may  discriminate  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  temporal,  we  cannot  do  so  when 
dealing  with  those  supreme  interests  and  relations, 
from  which  the  ultimate  ends  of  human  action  and 
the  sanctions  of  civil  society  derive  their  meaning. 
The  life  of  a  nation,  like  the  life  of  an  individual, 
forms  an  indivisible  whole.     The  soul  is  one,  and 


70  THE  ALIENATION  OF  THE 

all  voluntary  acts  of  a  moral  being  must  be  spiritual 
acts.  We  cannot  at  one  moment  be  spiritual  be- 
ings, and  at  the  next  be  released  from  spiritual  re- 
straints ;  now  subject  to  law  and  now  a  law  unto 
ourselves  !  The  principle  of  the  separation  of 
church  and  state  receives  an  unwarranted  and  most 
pernicious  interpretation,  when  it  is  understood  to 
mean,  as  it  so  often  is,  that  religion  and  politics 
occupy  two  wholly  distinct  provinces.  Much,  I 
know,  has  been  said  of  the  non-political  character 
of  early  Christianity,  but  the  relation  of  the  primi- 
tive Christians  to  external  society  was  exceptional  ; 
they  were  subjects  of  a  state  based  on  antagonistic 
beliefs,  and  were  hemmed  in  on  every  hand  with 
corrupt  pagan  institutions.  But  as  the  Gospel  grad- 
ually refashioned  society,  this  relation  was  changed ; 
the  church  found  its  most  efficient  ally  in  that  sec- 
ular arm  which  had  so  cruelly  crushed  it ;  and  re- 
ligious conviction,  instead  of  alienating  men  from 
political  duties,  became  the  most  powerful  spur  to 
political  action.  Rothe,  indeed,  has  argued  that 
Christianity  is  essentially  a  political  principle,  and 
that  it  is  the  destiny  of  all  distinctive  ecclesiastical 
organizations  to  be  finally  absorbed  into  a  Christian 
state. 

Throughout  the  early  period  of  our  own  history 
the  only  educated  class  were  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion. To  furnish  the  churches  with  trained  teach- 
ers was  the  main  purpose  for  which  our  most  ven- 
erable institutions  of  learning  were  founded.  While 
the  clergy  no  longer  hold  this  exceptional  rank  they 
still  form  a  numerous  and  conspicuous  part  of  our 
educated  class,  and,  so  far  as  concerns  the  shaping 
of  popular  opinion,    doubtless    its    most    influentia. 


EDUCATED    CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  7 1 

part.  They  touch  the  deepest  chords  of  popular 
sentiment  as  no  other  agency  does.  And  if  it  be 
true  that  the  state  is  but  the  embodiment  of  this 
popular  sentiment,  that  its  action  is  inevitably 
shaped  by  the  convictions  which  the  great  body  of 
the  people  come  from  time  to  time  to  cherish  as 
right  and  true,  what  duty  can  rest  upon  the  pulpit 
more  sacred  and  more  imperative  than  the  duty  of 
subjecting  this  popular  sentiment  to  the  discipline 
of  religious  belief  ?  Even  what  is  termed  specula- 
tive opinion  cannot  be  set  aside  as  unimportant,  for 
no  earnest,  efficient  action,  no  action  aiming  at  large 
and  beneficent  results,  can  be  severed  from  specula- 
tive opinion.  From  speculative  opinion  all  the  vital 
movements  of  society  take  their  shape.  Mr.  Burke, 
in  a  brilliant  passage,  has  declared  that  Politics  and 
the  Pulpit  have  very  little  in  common,  but  it  was 
the  Puritan  pulpit  which  created  the  noblest  type 
of  the  republican  citizen. 

And  in  this  trying  crisis  through  which  we  now 
are  passing,  when  a  cup  of  humiliation  and  shame 
is  pressed  to  our  lips  such  as  we  were  not  forced 
to  drink  in  the  darkest  hour  when  treason  stalked 
abroad,  to  whom  shall  we  look  to  quicken  our  slug- 
gish moral  sense,  to  diffuse  a  more  sober  temper, 
to  inspire  a  more  genuine  reverence  for  things  that 
are  true,  honest,  lovely,  and  of  good  report,  rather 
than  to  the  ministers  of  religion  ?  Who  but  they 
can  educate  that  public  will  which,  Sismondi  tells 
us,  "  is  the  sum  of  all  the  wills,  of  all  the  intelli- 
gence, of  all  the  virtue  of  the  nation  "  ?  What  voice 
but  theirs  shall  bid  that  storm  to  rise  which  shall 
sweep  forever  away  the  whole  abhorred  crew  that 
have  swarmed  like  unclean  birds  to  the  seats  of 
power,  — 


72  THE   ALIENATION  OF   THE 

"  Conspiring  to  uphold  their  state 
By  worse  than  hostile  deeds,  violating  the  ends 
For  which  our  country  is  a  name  so  dear  "  ? 

I  cannot  but  think  that  our  American  Christianity 
has  come,  of  late  years,  to  concern  itself  too  exclu- 
sively with  private  and  social  needs,  and  has  lost 
the  masculine  hold  it  once  had  on  public  duties. 
In  enforcing  the  fear  of  God  in  "  civil  things,"  no 
minister  of  the  gospel  need  for  a  moment  think  that 
he  is  falling  below  the  highest  level  of  his  official 
duty.  Who  but  looks  back  with  veneration  to  the 
New  England  minister  of  the  olden  time,  —  like 
Ward,  of  Ipswich,  whose  vigorous  and  well-furnished 
intellect  could  turn  from  the  composition  of  sermons 
to  the  drawing  up  of  a  "Body  of  Liberties," — like 
many  of  a  later  day,  who,  in  the  genuine  tradition 
of  the  fathers,  refused  to  call  any  human  duties 
common  or  unclean.  Nay,  are  not  some  of  the  most 
brilliant  memories  of  this  anniversary  associated 
with  one  whose  course  has  but  just  ended,  —  one 
in  whom  the  sinewy  fibre  of  the  past  generation 
was  singularly  blended  with  the  grace,  the  sweet- 
ness, the  insight  of  the  new,  — who,  while  exploring 
the  innermost  mysteries  of  spiritual  experience, 
could  discuss  with  unrivaled  force  the  true  wealth 
and  weal  of  nations  ?  Known  to  the  world  as  a 
preacher  and  theologian,  he  was  not  less  known  to 
his  neighbors  as  a  wise  and  zealous  and  public- 
spirited  citizen  ;  and  when  they  sought  to  console 
his  dying  moments  by  ordaining  that  the  fair  park 
which  owed  its  existence  to  his  foresight  should 
bear  his  name,  they  surely  did  not  deem  that  Bush- 
nell  had  in  aught  degraded  religion  while  enforcing 
such  earnest  conviction  of  the  sacredness  of  politi- 
cal duties. 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  73 

But  in  proof  of  my  position  that,  in  a  community- 
governed  by  discussion,  the  most  wholesome  and 
potent  influence  of  the  educated  man  is  indepen- 
dent of  political  office,  I  need  not  turn  from  your 
own  roll.  Since  your  last  anniversary  the  oldest 
graduate  of  this  university  has  passed  away.  From 
the  long  procession  which  yesterday  for  the  first 
time  entered  these  doors  the  most  venerable  figure 
was  missing.  Deriving  his  early  nurture  from  these 
springs,  his  long  and  useful  and  honorable  career 
was  passed  in  a  distant  city.  In  youth  a  scholar  of 
fairest  promise,  yet  never  coveting  mere  intellectual 
gains  as  the  highest  acquisition,  —  achieving  at  the 
bar  the  foremost  rank  at  a  time  when  the  leaders  of 
the  Philadelphia  bar,  to  whom  he  stood  opposed, 
would  have  graced  Westminster  Hall  in  its  palmiest 
days,  —  instructing  the  bench  with  the  research,  the 
discrimination,  the  perspicuity  of  his  arguments  ; 
and,  while  devoted  to  his  profession,  never  relaxing 
his  love  of  letters,  —  a  proficient  in  the  literatures 
of  France  and  Spain,  delighting  in  history  and  poe- 
try, a  close  student  of  theology,  —  he  was  much 
more  than  lawyer,  much  more  than  scholar.  Al- 
ways, with  one  brief  exception,  declining  political 
office,  indifferent  to  the  honors  which  only  waited 
his  acceptance,  he  furnished  a  crowning  proof  of 
his  eager  interest  in  political  issues  and  his  unflag- 
ging zeal  for  the  public  welfare  when,  at  the  age  of 
fourscore,  he  issued  from  his  well-earned  retirement 
to  uphold  the  pillars  of  the  state  ;  and  in  the  un- 
flinching courage  with  which  he  more  than  once 
faced  and  conquered  a  perverted  public  sentiment, 
he  merited  the  tribute  paid  by  the  greatest  Athenian 
historian  to  the  greatest  Athenian  statesman,  that 


74  THE  ALIENATION  OF   THE 

"powerful  from  dignity  of  character  as  well  as  from 
wisdom,  and  conspicuously  above  the  least  tinge  of 
corruption,  he  held  back  the  people  with  a  free  hand, 
and  was  their  real  leader  instead  of  being  led  by 
them."  Such  is  the  sway  of  wisdom,  of  courage,  of 
unsullied  integrity.  We  live  in  evil  days  ;  ominous 
clouds  lower  on  our  political  horizon  ;  but  when  I 
behold  the  unsought  homage  paid  to  a  private  citi- 
zen like  Horace  Binney  I  gather  new  hope  for  the 
republic. 

Is  not  the  fashioning  of  such  a  man  the  crowning 
achievement  of  a  great  university  like  this  ?  Let 
me  not  seem  to  disparage  the  wider  scope  which  our 
time  has  given  to  university  training.  I  heartily 
applaud  the  extended  significance  of  liberal  studies  ; 
I  rejoice  in  the  enriched  apparatus  of  discovery,  in 
the  multiplied  and  exhilarating  solicitations  to  re- 
search. I  would  throw  these  portals  wide  open  to 
all  investigation,  yet  still  remembering  that  in  the 
history  of  Higher  Education  the  liberal  arts  were  the 
precursors  of  special  and  professional  studies,  and 
that  admirable  culture  of  whatever  kind  must  have 
its  roots  in  the  moral  sentiment,  I  am  unshaken  in 
the  conviction  that  a  seat  of  liberal  discipline  fulfills 
its  noblest  functions  in  the  rearing  of  wise,  magnan- 
imous, public-spirited  men,  —  of  men  not  merely 
equipped  for  specific  pursuits,  but  accustomed  to  the 
most  generous  recognition  of  the  responsibilities 
resting  upon  man  as  man.  Where,  indeed,  can  we 
look  for  such  but  to  our  seats  of  learning  ?  and 
where  so  much  as  to  such  a  seat  of  learning  as  this  ? 
—  a  seat  whose  years  remind  us  that  the  sources 
of  our  national  life  lie  far  back  of  the  centennial 
period  which  we  are  this  year  commemorating  ;  the 


EDUCATED   CLASS  FROM  POLITICS.  75 

first  ever  founded  by  a  free  people  through  their 
elected  representatives ;  linked,  in  its  earliest  days 
with  the  statesman 

"  Than  whom  a  better  ne'er  held 
The  helm  of  Rome  ; " 

which  hastened- our  independence  by  half  a  century  ; 
which  bears  on  its  long  catalogue  the  names  of  so 
many  public  men,  of  so  many  patriots,  of  so  many 
heroes.  Let  Harvard  cherish  letters  ;  let  her  foster 
the  sciences  ;  let  her  lead  in  extending  on  every 
hand  the  frontiers  of  knowledge  ;  but  let  it  be  her 
chiefest  glory,  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  to  be 
called  the  Mother  of  Men.  Let  her  sons  as  they 
survey  these  stately  piles,  as  from  year  to  year  they 
delight  to  walk  about  her,  to  tell  her  towers,  and 
consider  her  palaces,  still  repeat,  as  their  proudest 
boast,  — 

"  Hie  locus  insignes  magnosque  creavit  alumnos." 


THE  METHOD  OF  ACADEMIC 
CULTURE. 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA  SOCIETY 
OF  AMHERST  COLLEGE,  JULY  6,  1869. 


I  count  myself  happy  in  coming  before  you  fur- 
nished with  a  subject  to  which  your  sympathies  are 
already  pledged.  The  occasion  suggests  a  theme. 
Surely  we  may  accept  it  as  an  auspicious  sign  that 
the  tie  between  the  graduate  and  his  alma  mater  has 
ceased  to  be  merely  nominal.  These  annual  gath- 
erings are  invigorated  with  new  life,  as  we  come 
more  and  more  to  view  them  as  arenas  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  whatever  concerns  the  supreme  academic 
interests.  As  conservators  of  these  interests  we 
can  tolerate  no  narrower  interpretation  of  our  func- 
tion. We  are  here  to  take  care  that  the  republic  of 
letters  receives  no  harm.  And  at  a  time  when  the 
foremost  minds  among  us  are  earnestly  grappling 
with  one  problem  it  would  imperil  the  highest  uses 
of  this  hour  to  divert  your  thoughts  to  any  other. 
Confident  that  your  appreciation  of  the  subject  will 
supplement  my  shortcomings,  I  shall  ask  you  to 
consider  the  Method  of  Academic  Culture. 

Before  such  a  company  as  this  I  may  assume  the 
existence  of  a  distinctive  academic  discipline.  Well 
nigh  seventy  years  have,  indeed,  elapsed  since  Schel- 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE.         J? 

ling,  in  the  famous  lectures  which  he  gave  at  Jena, 
said  that  a  youth  in  pursuit  of  liberal  culture  was 
adrift  on  a  boundless  sea  without  star  or  compass, 
and  still,  after  this  long  interval,  we  find  the  histo- 
rian of  Elizabeth,  in  his  inaugural  oration  at  St. 
Andrews,  declaring,  in  almost  the  same  strain,  that 
the  great  schools  and  colleges  of  England  were  in 
the  midst  of  a  revolution  which,  like  most  revolu- 
tions, meant  discontent  with  what  they  had,  with  no 
clear  idea  of  what  they  wanted.  Yet  this  unprom- 
ising result  need  not  make  us  waver  in  the  faith 
that  there  is  an  aim  and  scope  of  education  more 
complete  than  mere  acquisition  of  knowledge  or 
technical  skill ;  and  in  the  rush  and  pressure  of  this 
modern  age,  hemmed  in  with  material  wants  and 
triumphs,  begirt  with  paltry  expedients  of  politics 
and  trade,  we  gather  to-night  about  the  old  altars, 
to  confess  ourselves  the  worshippers  of  this  peren- 
nial Truth  and  Beauty. 

It  is  proof  of  wholesome  progress  that,  of  late, 
the  controversy  respecting  education  has  changed 
its  front.  The  old  babbling  about  useful  knowledge 
is  now  well  nigh  banished  to  the  baser  sort.  Both 
parties  have  seen  at  length  that  the  ineffectual  de- 
bate between  the  advocates  of  classical  and  of  scien- 
tific training  was  wide  of  the  real  mark.  A  mere 
classical  pedant  like  Dr.  Moberly  may  avow  with- 
out a  blush  that  he  does  not  know  in  what  the  dis- 
ciplinary value  of  the  sciences  consists,  or  a  mere 
intellectual  gladiator,  like  Mr.  Robert  Lowe,  may 
find  a  pleasure  in  measuring  his  strength  with  the 
mother  from  whose  breasts  he  drew  it,  but  more 
liberal  minds  are  coming  to  loathe  this  false  antag- 
onism.    The   great   high    priest  of    the    utilitarian 


78         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

philosophy  has  shamed  Oxford's  ungrateful  son  with 
his  appreciative  estimate  of  classical  study,  while 
at  the  same  time  the  most  intelligent  advocates  of 
scientific  training  rest  the  distinctive  claims  of  the 
sciences  to  form  a  part  of  education,  on  their  disci- 
plinary power.  They  hold  to  intellectual  culture  as 
the  chief  end,  thus  conceding  the  position  on  which 
the  defenders  of  the  classical  discipline  have  stood 
from  the  beginning.  Mr.  Atkinson,  in  his  spirited 
assault  on  the  great  schools  of  England,  frankly 
confesses  this.  But  while  both  sides  have  taken  the 
only  sound  and  tenable  position,  that  the  compara- 
tive value  of  all  studies  must  be  measured  by  this 
common  standard,  the  important  fact  is  not  over- 
looked that  the  strain  and  tendency  of  the  two 
methods  remain  essentially  distinct.  Says  the  re- 
cently elected  President  of  Harvard  University,  who 
has  earned  the  praise  of  stating  more  fairly  than  any 
other  what  the  new  education  may  be  expected  to 
accomplish  :  — 

"  Between  this  course  and  the  ordinary  semi-classical 
course,  there  is  no  question  of  information  by  the  one 
and  formation  by  the  other ;  of  cramming  utilitarian  facts 
by  one  system,  and  developing  mental  powers  by  the 
other.  Both  courses  form,  train,  and  educate  the  mind, 
and  one  no  more  than  the  other,  only  the  disciplines  are 
different.  The  fact  is  that  the  whole  tone  and  spirit  of  a 
good  college  ought  to  be  different  in  kind  from  that  of  a 
good  polytechnic  or  scientific  school." 

Such  an  admission  from  such  a  source  has  a  sig- 
nificance that  cannot  be  overlooked.  Had  this  es- 
sential distinction  between  the  college  and  the  sci- 
entific school  been  always  borne  in  mind  we  might 
have  been  saved  much  wild  experimenting.     I  make 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        79 

it  the  starting  point  of  this  discussion.     This  distinc- 
tion will  not,  however,  avail   us  much  if  we  fail  to 
reach  an  adequate  conception  of  what  culture  means. 
For  if  by  culture  we  understand  no  more  than  the 
word  is  often  taken  to  imply,  the  formal  training  of 
the  intellectual   powers,  the    question   between  the 
classics  and  the  sciences  is  not  worth  the  ink  that 
has  been  wasted  on  it.     If  we  value  the  study  of  an- 
cient languages,   or  the  study  of  modern  sciences, 
simply  as  mental  whetstones  on    which   to  sharpen 
youthful  wits,  there  is   no  need  to  set  one  against 
the  other.     The  utility  of  both  has  been  amply  vin- 
dicated.    Surely  no  one  would  deem  the  time  was 
wasted  that   the   younger  Pitt  spent  in  translating 
the  rhapsody  of  Lycophron,  or   that  Peel  was   idle 
when  as  a  boy  he  used  to  sit  on  the  stone  steps  of 
Harrow  school-house,  and  while  the  bell  was  ring- 
ing write  Greek  verses  for  his  playmates.     And  in 
his    memorable    speech    in    introducing   the    Irish 
Church  Bill,  certainly  the  most  marvelous  intellect- 
ual display  that  the  British  parliament  has  seen  dur- 
ing the  present  generation,  Mr.  Gladstone  has  abun- 
dantly demonstrated    the  value    of  that  early  disci- 
pline which   Eton  and   Oxford  gave  him.     On  the 
other  hand,  the   pure  disciplinary   uses  of  scientific 
study  can   hardly  be  overestimated.     The  mere  in- 
tellectual powers  are  nowhere  more  highly  taxed. 
Whatever  opinion  we  may  form  of  such  methods  of 
dealing  with   the  natural    sciences   as  Mr.   Wilson 
tells  us  he  has  been   practicing  for  the  past  eight 
years  at  Rugby,  the  truth  of  Mill's  maxim  is  indis- 
putable that  in  the   higher  physical   investigations 
"reasoning  and  observation   have  been  carried  to 
their  greatest  known  perfection."     It  is  absurd  to 


SO         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

say  that  such  studies  do  not  furnish  an  intellectual 
discipline  of  the  highest  order.  If,  therefore,  the 
mere  formal  training  of  the  mental  parts  be  made 
the  chief  aim,  there  is  no  question  between  the 
classics  and  the  sciences  that  need  cause  a  long 
dispute. 

But  can  the  meaning  of  culture  be  thus  restricted  ? 
In  other  words  does  the  value  of  a  study  reside 
chiefly  in  the  intellectual  strain  required  to  master 
it,  or  is  there  beyond  all  this  some  vital  and  fruitful 
relation  between  its  subject  matter  and  the  acquir- 
ing mind  ?  Is  there  not  a  power  to  inspire  as  well 
as  a  power  to  train  ?  If  effort  only  be  the  aim,  there 
might  seem  some  show  of  reason  in  the  rule  of  an 
English  teacher  that  a  study  is  good  just  in  the  pro- 
portion that  it  is  dry  and  disagreeable.  To  stop 
with  this  is  a  hopeless  confusion  of  means  and  ends. 
Mere  mental  training,  however  nice  or  rigorous, 
must  remain  but  the  threshold  of  genuine  culture. 
No  matter  whether  it  be  the  discipline  of  the  observ- 
ing or  of  the  reflecting  powers,  no  matter  whether 
acquired  by  dealing  with  words  or  things,  with  the 
critical  comparisons  of  language,  or  the  analytical 
processes  of  science,  if  we  do  not  go  beyond  this 
we  content  ourselves  with  a  theory  of  education 
which  Montaigne  might  correct.  "  The  advantages 
of  our  study,"  he  says,  "are  to  become  better  and 
wiser." 

Not  that  we  would  in  the  least  underrate  fine  in- 
tellectual discipline,  but  it  is  always  the  means,  not 
the  end.  Even  when  this  intellectual  discipline  is 
put  to  its  final  use  in  the  mastery  of  new  truth,  it  is 
yet  far  short  of  culture  in  the  highest  sense.  For 
mere  intellectual  activity  may  be  vain  and  profitless, 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.         8 1 

and  earn  at  last  the  bitter  verdict,  "  all  is  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit."  The  most  varied  training  of  the 
reasoning  powers,  the  most  far-reaching  and  all-em- 
bracing application  of  them,  may  still  fail  to  touch 
the  great  circumference  of  spiritual  completeness. 
Culture  is  the  aspiration  for  all  things  that  may  be 
desired.  Its  aim  is  the  perfect  man.  It  is  realized 
not  in  any  one-sided  development  of  human  nature, 
nor  in  the  exclusive  recognition  of  one  kind  of  truth, 
but  in  the  happy,  harmonious  play  of  all  spiritual 
energies,  in  the  pursuit  of  whatever  things  are  true, 
honest,  just,  pure,  lovely,  and  of  good  report.  Thus 
it  has  its  origin  not  in  scientific  curiosity,  still  less 
in  petty  social  pride ;  its  true  source  is  man's  insa- 
tiable longing  to  be  made  complete  in  the  image  of 
the  infinite  perfection.  "The  foundation  of  culture," 
says  Emerson,  "  is  the  moral  sentiment." 

This  complete  inclusion  of  man's  nature  within 
the  scope  of  culture  at  once  renders  culture  vital  and 
dynamic.  It  is  not  the  mere  perception  by  the  mind 
of  the  true  order,  but  the  conforming  of  the  whole 
nature  to  it.  The  cultivated  man  is  not  the  man 
who  has  mastered  truth,  but  the  man  who  has  been 
mastered  by  it ;  the  man  in  whose  soul  the  love  of 
truth  is  the  sovereign  principle ;  whose  inner  citadel 
of  reason  and  desire  is  garrisoned  with  all  noble  and 
just  and  rational  convictions ;  whose  feet  are  swift  to 
run  in  the  pathway  of  gracious  and  magnanimous 
acts.  Mr.  Bright  has  sneered  at  culture  as  a  smat- 
tering of  a  little  Latin  and  less  Greek.  It  is  not 
this  ;  nor  is  it  all  the  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek 
possessed  by  Porson  or  Bentley,  or  all  the  knowledge 
of  the  physical  sciences  possessed  by  Oersted  or  Far- 
aday.    It  is  measured  not  by  any  variety  or  extent 

6 


82         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

of  acquisition  ;  it  is  in  the  man.  All  intellectual  ac- 
quisition is  tributary  to  it,  all  the  faculties  do  its 
behests,  yet  these  all  are  but 

"  The  shapes  the  masking  spirit  wears." 

Culture  sucks  the  sweetness  from  all  laws,  from  all 
civilization.  Apprehended  in  its  true  meaning,  all 
things  that  men  have  sought  after  are  its  ministering 
servants.  Not  mind  alone,  but  will,  emotion,  sensi- 
bility are  the  material  with  which  it  works.  It  com- 
bines them  all  in  prolific  alliance.  It  bears  its  fruit 
in  the  indestructible  harvest  of  sweet  and  beautiful 
souls.  In  this  sense  culture  is  its  own  end.  It  is 
self-sufficing  and  final.  To  possess  it  is  to  realize 
the  chief  good  of  life.  Nor  is  it  merely  the  aspira- 
tion for  individual  perfection.  Resting  on  the  benign 
principle  that  we  are  members  one  of  another,  and 
that  the  perfection  of  human  nature,  as  it  is  the  as- 
piration for  one  eternal  truth  and  beauty,  can  only 
be  realized  in  the  unity  of  one  body,  culture  is  not 
selfish  but  social,  not  exclusive  but  comprehensive, 
not  individual  but  catholic.  A  divine  judgment  on 
every  forced  and  mechanical  method  of  reform,  it  is 
the  main-spring  of  all  effectual  philanthropy.  "The 
men  of  culture,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "  are  the  true 
apostles  of  equality." 

With  this  definition  of  culture,  there  is  no  need  of 
showing  that  in  any  method  not  the  form  alone  but 
the  subject  matter  must  be  of  prime  importance. 
The  question  as  to  the  comparative  value  of  certain 
courses  becomes  not  merely  a  question  as  to  their 
disciplinary  power  ;  we  must  also  ask  by  which  study 
is  the  mind  brought  into  most  fruitful  contact  with 
noble,  inspiring,  stimulating  truth.     If  it  be  the  fina1 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        83 

object  of  a  complete  and  generous  education  to 
achieve  so  far  as  we  may  this  ideal  of  compact  and 
proportioned  character,  plainly  those  studies  must 
have  the  preference  which  touch  the  mind  in  its 
most  vital  parts,  and  waken  it  to  most  harmonious 
action.  And  these  must  be  truths  which  appeal  to 
the  spiritual  sense  ;  truths  not  of  form  and  relation, 
but  of  essence ;  not  of  inanimate,  unconscious  nature, 
but  of  life  and  feeling  ;  truths  not  of  expedient  ap- 
plication to  mere  present  needs,  reaching  no  inter- 
ests beyond  the  range  of  things  seen  and  temporal  ; 
but  truths  of  the  supersensuous,  eternal  world, 
"truths  which  wake  to  perish  never." 

"Greatness  of  style  in  painting,"  says  Ruskin,  "is 
always  in  exact  proportion  to  nobleness  of  subject." 
The  rule  holds  just  as  well  in  education,  for  culture 
in  its  highest  stage  is  simply  genial  assimilation.  It 
is  only  when  commercing  with  the  highest  truth  that 
the  soul  is  touched  to  its  finest  issues.  Never  can 
culture  wrest  itself  from  this  alliance  with  the  su- 
preme interests  of  humanity.  It  ceases  to  be  the 
expression  of  completeness  and  harmony  soon  as  it 
shuts  its  eyes  to  this  horizon.  The  ultramontane  De 
Maistre  did  not  exaggerate  this  principle  when  he 
claimed  that  educational  not  less  than  social  institu- 
tions must  rest  on  the  principles  of  all  existence  ; 
and  Niebuhr  laid  down  a  principle  more  profound 
and  far-reaching  than  himself,  perhaps,  perceived, 
when,  writing  to  Madame  Hensler  about  the  educa- 
tion of  his  boy,  he  said,  with  a  sad  sincerity,  "  I  shall 
nurture  in  him  from  infancy  a  firm  faith  in  all  that 
I  have  lost."  As  the  law  of  culture  is  centrality,  so 
it  can  never  be  gained  when  the  true  centre  is  lost 
sight  of. 


84         THE   METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

Does  it  seem  the  mere  summing  up  of  our  discus- 
sion to  say,  with  J.  Stuart  Mill,  that  education  has  for 
its  object,  "besides  calling  forth  the  greatest  possi- 
ble quantity  of  intellectual  power,  to  inspire  the  in- 
tensest  love  of  truth."  But  the  question  still  re- 
mains, in  relation  to  what  truth  is  this  most  intense 
love  exerted  ?  In  the  perception  of  what  relations 
and  affinities  are  these  inmost  springs  of  being 
touched,  and  the  soul  thrilled,  absorbed,  enraptured, 
with  its  vision  ?  In  contact  with  what  superior  forces 
are  these  tides  of  feeling  at  their  flood  ?  There  may 
be  joy  in  the  perception  of  mere  mathematical  rela- 
tions, as  Newton,  when  he  drew  near  the  demonstra- 
tion of  his  great  law,  was  overpowered  by  his  emo- 
tion ;  the  mind  may  be  exalted  by  tracing  the  broad 
operation  of  physical  principles,  as  Kepler  cried  with 
rapture,  "  I  read  thy  thoughts  after  thee,  O  God : ' 
yet  who  will  question  that  the  intensest  feeling  can 
be  aroused  only  with  reference  to  those  questions  of 
the  soul  that  are  linked  to  the  eternal  poles  of  the 
spiritual  firmament. 

It  is  this  that  draws  the  ineradicable  line  between 
literature  and  science  as  sources  of  a  complete  and 
noble  culture.  Remember  it  is  no  question  here  as 
to  their  disciplinary  power,  but  as  to  their  capacity 
to  furnish  this  living  bread  which  must  form  the  diet 
of  all  generous  souls.  It  is  not  the  form  but  the  sub- 
stance that  now  concerns  us.  Judged  by  this  rule 
the  sciences  must  be  assigned  a  lower  relative  posi- 
tion, as  failing  to  lead  the  mind  to  the  most  invigo- 
rating springs  of  spiritual  culture  ;  and  a  method  of 
discipline  in  which  the  sciences  are  made  predom- 
inant can  never  be  relied  on  to  achieve  the  highest 
end.     I  am  far  from  wishing  to  deny  the  sciences  all 


THE   METHOD    OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE.         85 

moral  and  esthetic  influence,  but  where  this  influ- 
ence can  be  most  clearly  traced  it  will  be  always 
found  that  the  spirit  of  rigid  scientific  method  has 
been  qualified  by  convictions  drawn  from  an  inde- 
pendent source.  That  sense  in  nature  of  "  some- 
thing far  more  deeply  interfused,"  which  is  one  of 
the  prime  characteristics  of  modern  in  distinction 
from  ancient  literature,  is,  in  fact,  a  protest  of  the 
spiritual  nature  against  the  materialistic  tendency  of 
modern  science. 

So  far  as  science  comes  into  contact  with  the  great 
problems  of  humanity,  it  holds  a  two-fold  attitude. 
In  the  first  place  it  ignores  religion  altogether,  re- 
stricting the  study  of  man's  spiritual  relations  to 
those  ties  and  obligations  simply  that  connect  him 
with  his  fellow-man  ;  the  position  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  to  whose  cheerless  attempts  to  coordinate 
the  sciences  might  be  applied  the  words  of  an  old 
writer,  "  that  like  Ulysses  wandering  through  the 
shades,  he  met  all  the  ghosts,  but  could  not  see  the 
queen."  For  he  not  only  rejects  as  failures  all  at- 
tempts to  cross  the  confines  of  phenomena,  he  goes 
to  the  limit  of  denying  that  the  human  mind  has  any 
capacity  for  apprehending  a  supreme  cause.  He 
does  not  even  rise  to  the  level  of  worshipping  an 
Unknown  God.  And  in  professing  this  dismal  creed 
it  is  past  doubt  that  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  speak  for 
himself  alone.  A  second  position,  but  one  hardly  in 
advance  of  this,  is  when  Mr.  Mill  generously  con- 
cedes that  Theism,  "under  certain  conditions,"  is  still 
an  open  question.  "The  positive  mode  of  thought," 
says  he,  "is  not  necessarily  a  denial  of  the  supernat- 
ural ;  it  merely  throws  back  that  question  to  the 
origin  of  things.     The  positive  philosopher  is  free  to 


86         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

give  his  opinion  on  this  subject,  according  to  the 
weight  he  attaches  to  the  analogies,  which  are  called 
marks  of  design,  and  to  the  general  traditions  of  the 
human  race :  the  value  of  these  evidences  is  indeed 
a  question  for  Positive  philosophy,  but  it  is  not  one 
in  which  Positive  philosophers  must  necessarily  be 
agreed."  Mr.  Mill  admits,  therefore,  no  nearer  ap- 
proach to  Deity  than  through  the  inference  from  de- 
sign, or  external  evidence.  "  In  his  general  philoso- 
phy," says  Masson,  "  he  provides  no  room  or  func- 
tion whatever  for  belief  as  distinct  from  knowledge." 
And  who  that  recalls  the  tone  of  unconsoled,  com- 
fortless sorrow  that  sighs  through  the  dedication 
of  his  essay  upon  Liberty  to  the  memory  of  his  de- 
ceased wife  can  doubt  that,  to  this  capacious  and 
highly  trained  understanding,  the  truths  which  min- 
ister the  most  serene  and  beneficent  discipline  to 
the  soul  are  indeed  open  questions. 

That  these  carefully  expressed  opinions  of  the  two 
foremost  English  writers  who  have  discussed  the 
logical  connections  of  the  sciences  must  be  accepted 
as  a  fair  exposition  of  the  most  advanced  specula- 
tive opinion  among  scientific  men  of  the  present 
day  will  be  doubted  by  no  reader  of  Huxley  or  Dar- 
win. The  unmistakable  tone  of  both  is  indifference 
toward  those  truths  which  science  cannot  readily 
coordinate.  This  position  at  times  is  temperately 
implied,  at  times  arrogantly  asserted,  but  the  result 
in  either  case  remains  the  same.  It  is  no  exagger- 
ation to  affirm  that  the  study  of  the  physical  sciences, 
as  the  scope  and  limits  of  that  study  are  expounded 
by  some  of  its  most  eminent  professors,  excludes 
the  mind  from  the  highest  and  most  pressing  ques- 
tions that  concern  man  as  an  immortal  being.     And 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        87 

a  student  whose  mental  diet  is  drawn  exclusively  or 
mainly  from  these  sources  must  inevitably  miss  the 
most  vitalizing  sources  of  intellectual  culture.  The 
spirit  is  hopelessly  dwarfed  on  which  these  shackles 
have  once  been  fastened. 

"There  are,"  as  the  Duke  of  Argyll  most  truly 
says,  "many  kinds  of  priestcraft."  In  behalf  of 
science  some  men  seem  on  the  point  of  putting  forth 
an  "  Index  Expurgatorius "  of  scientific  study.  It 
furnishes  an  instructive  lesson  to  find  one  of  the 
loudest  advocates  of  intellectual  freedom  laying 
down  the  rule  that  "  whatever  is  inaccessible  to  rea- 
son should  be  strictly  interdicted  to  research."  But 
who  shall  sit  on  this  high  tribunal  ;  who  shall  draw 
the  line  where  reason  ends  ?  Alas  !  there  are 
"  slaves  of  thought  "  as  well  as  "  slaves  of  sense," 
chambers  of  darkness,  in  which  the  soul  may  wan- 
der, more  dismal  than  any  dungeon  in  which  the 
body  can  be  immured.  Of  all  servitude  there  is 
none  so  grinding  as  servitude  to  a  system  of  ideas, 
when  the  reason,  proud,  self-satisfied,  boasting  its 
emancipation  from  all  vulgar  prejudice,  repelling 
with  scorn  dependence  upon  any  higher  guidance, 
is  all  the  time  hopelessly  chained  by  its  own  proc- 
esses, weighed  down  with  fetters 

"  Forged  by  the  imperious,  lonely,  thinking  power." 

Even  when  physical  science  does  not  assume  this 
despotic  right  of  legislation  respecting  the  limits  of 
intellectual  activity,  it  may  equally  sap  the  highest 
culture  by  tempting  the  soul  to  lower  ranges  of  in- 
quiry. This  point  need  not  be  argued  ;  we  may 
appeal  to  history.  If  the  end  and  use  of  literary 
history  be,  as  Bacon  has  declared,   "not  so   much 


88         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE. 

for  curiosity  or  satisfaction  of  those  that  are  the 
lovers  of  learning ;  but  chiefly  for  a  more  serious 
and  grave  purpose,  which  is  that  it  will  make  learned 
men  wise  in  the  use  and  administration  of  learning:," 
we  may  gain  a  lesson  from  the  Italian  universities. 
In  the  fourteenth  century  Italy  had  the  intellectual 
preeminence  which  in  the  twelfth  had  belonged  to 
France.  But  the  institutions  which  had  been  cen- 
tres of  living  thought  became,  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, mere  scientific  schools.  They  boast  a  continu- 
ous series  of  illustrious  names,  but,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Vico,  illustrious  only  in  one  direction. 
Says  Matthew  Arnold  :  "  It  shows,  how  insufficient 
are  the  natural  sciences  alone  to  keep  up  in  a  peo- 
ple culture  and  life,  that  the  Italians,  at  the  end  of 
a  period  with  the  natural  sciences  alone  thriving  in 
it,  and  letters  and  philosophy  moribund,  found  them- 
selves, by  their  own  confession,  with  a  poverty  of 
general  culture,  and  in  an  atmosphere  unpropitious 
to  knowledge,  which  they  sorrowfully  contrast  with 
the  condition  of  other  and  happier  nations." 

Is  it  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  method  of 
scientific  culture  is  very  different  now  from  what  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Galileo  and  Torricelli  ;  I  an- 
swer, the  method  has  been  improved,  but  the  sub- 
ject matter,  with  which  alone  the  present  discussion 
is  concerned,  remains  the  same.  The  instruments 
of  investigation  are  more  perfect,  but  the  field  itself 
has  not  been  enlarged.  In  its  widest  scope  science 
aims  simply  at  finding  a  theory  of  nature  ;  its  last 
word  is  impersonal,  inexorable  law.  The  more  com- 
plete the  absorption  of  the  intellect  in  purely  scien- 
tific methods,  the  more  complete  the  severance  from 
all    spiritual    intuitions.     To    the   soul    imprisoned 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        89 

within  these  processes  the  "  jlame}itia  marnia  mun- 
di"  are  walls  of  brass.  Huxley,  like  Hume,  can 
find  no  refuge  from  materialism  but  in  skepticism. 
Science  yields  him  no  more  solid  ground  than  this. 
The  most  ringing  protest  against  this  absorbing 
tyranny,  in  modern  times,  of  the  scientific  spirit  is 
seen  in  the  wonderful  development  of  modern  music. 
Here  the  esthetic  sensibilities  escape  the  sway  of 
the  understanding.  The  part  of  man's  nature  that 
science  does  not  touch  and  cannot  arouse  struggles 
for  expression.  "Music,"  says  Taine,  "is  the  or- 
gan of  the  over-refined  sensibility,  and  vague,  bound- 
less aspiration  of  modern  life."  That  refuge  from 
the  limitations  of  corroding  every-day  existence 
which  coarse  natures  seek  in  coarse  excitements, 
is  furnished  the  more  cultivated  mind  in  the  en- 
chanting melodies  of  "  Orpheus,"  in  the  profound 
sadness  that  underlies  the  impetuous  movement  of 
"  Don  Giovanni,"  and  in  the  linked  sweetness  of 
"Fidelio."  The  serene  domain  of  fancy  and  imagi- 
nation which  the  lively  Greek  possessed  in  the  fair 
humanities  of  old  religion  now  lingers  in  the  mod- 
ern world  of  tones  ;  where  the  dim  feeling  of  the 
soul  for  things  not  dreamed  of  in  earth-born  phi- 
losophies finds  such  fit  embodiment.  Indeed,  as  I 
stood  the  other  day  with  the  great  multitude  which 
the  Jubilee  had  gathered,  and  caught  the  dense  waves 
of  sound  which  beat  on  the  air  with  almost  the  so- 
lidity of  Atlantic  billows,  it  seemed  far  less  a  festi- 
val of  Peace  than  the  fleeing  of  men  and  women 
from  that  sway  of  the  Common,  which,  says  Goethe, 
binds  us  all.  Against  such  wants  science  can  fur- 
nish no  antidote.  On  the  contrary,  science  has 
most  in  common  with  these  tendencies  of  a  mate- 


90         THE   METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE. 

rialistic  civilization.  Science  addresses  the  under- 
standing. Along  her  straight  and  even  path  the 
mind  runs  with  swiftness  and  precision,  but  never 
soars.  Her  graded  course  shuns  heights  and  depths 
alike.  Shut  up  in  her  luxurious  cars  the  traveler 
speeds  to  his  journey's  end,  unconscious  that  during 
the  night  he  has  had  the  glitter  of  the  Northern 
Lights  above  him  or  the  boiling  surges  of  Niagara 
beneath.  Science  discusses  Force  and  Method,  but 
says  nothing  of  God,  Freedom,  and  Immortality. 
She  leads  us  to  the  tree  of  Knowledge  ;  not  to  the 
tree  of  Life. 

The  distinction  and  supreme  excellence,  consid- 
ered as  a  part  of  academic  method,  of  what  were 
aptly  termed,  in  former  times,  the  "  Litterse  Hu- 
maniores,"  consist  in  this  contact  which  they  fur- 
nish with  the  central  and  indestructible  interests 
of  the  soul.  There  is,  after  all,  no  such  music  in 
the  spheres  as  the  "  still,  sad  music  of  humanity." 
How  undying  are  these  wants  !  The  oldest  book 
that  time  has  spared  is  fresh  and  new  when  looked 
at  in  this  aspect.  The  problems  that  troubled  the 
patriarchs  are  the  problems  that  trouble  us.  The 
circle  that  began  with  Job  comes  round  again  with 
Faust.  The  moral  and  esthetic  influence  of  science 
is  limited  and  indirect,  but  in  converse  with  litera- 
ture we  feel  a  power  that  is  close  and  living ;  we 
tread  the  overshadowing  verge  of  the  great  mys- 
teries that  have  baffled  sages  and  saints  ;  our  hearts 
throb  in  unison  with  all  that  man  has  hoped  or 
feared  ;  we  wrestle  with  him  in  his  midnight  con- 
flicts with  unknown  foes ;  we  pillow  our  heads  be- 
side him,  and  dream  his  heavenly  dreams. 

Were  the  study  of  the  classics  no  more  than  a 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        91 

school-room  drill  it  might  be  difficult  to  show  that 
some  modern  tongues  could  not  be  used  with  the 
same  advantage.  But  surely  the  tale  of  Troy  divine 
has  a  higher  use  than  to  furnish  to  the  Greek 
grammars  painful  lists  of  exceptions.  The  highest 
value  of  all  literature  is  in  its  substance,  not  its 
form.  Bacon  calls  it  the  first  distemper  of  learning 
when  men  study  words.  A  man  may  waste  years 
in  the  fruitless  labor  of  wearing  out  his  dictionary, 
and  yet  die  without  catching  a  sound  of  the  infinite 
melody  of  the  many-voiced  sea  ;  while  Keats,  who 
knew  no  Greek,  by  the  subtlety  of  a  kindred  poetic 
sense,  filched  some  of  its  fairest  flowers  from  old 
Parnassus.  Unless  our  classical  discipline  goes  be- 
yond mere  grammatical  analysis,  we  may  as  well 
dismiss  the  classics  from  our  curriculum.  The  doubt- 
ful advantage  otherwise  derived  from  them  will  hard- 
ly compensate  for  the  toil  and  trouble.  Ascham  tells 
us  that  Queen  Elizabeth  never  took  Greek  or  Latin 
grammar  in  hand  after  the  first  declining  of  a  noun 
and  a  verb. 

Accepting  literature  in  its  widest  sense  as  the 
vehicle  for  expressing  the  whole  varied  and  subtle 
experience  of  humanity,  including  in  it  whatever  of 
genuine  and  noble  utterance,  whether  in  poetry,  in 
philosophy,  in  history,  and  how  ample  and  manifold 
its  material  as  a  means  of  highest  culture  !  How  high 
its  reach,  how  broad  and  comprehensive  its  scope  ! 
What  shapes  it  evokes  !  What  pictures  it  holds  up  be- 
fore us  !  What  joy,  what  sorrow,  what  triumph,  what 
despair  ;  what  biting  accents  of  doubt  and  mockery  ; 
what  angel  voices  of  faith  and  love !  The  anguish 
of  Lear  ;  the  troubled  conscience  of  Macbeth  ;  the 
mental    torture   of   Othello  ;    the     introspection   of 


92  THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

Hamlet  ;  do  these  speak  to  us  in  a  foreign  tongue  ? 
The  spiritual  struggles  of  Augustine ;  the  haunted 
rhymes  of  Dante  ;  the  doubts  of  Pascal  ;  the  sen- 
timentalism  of  Rousseau  ;  what  have  we  in  all  this 
but  ourselves,  sketched  in  larger  outlines,  and  dyed 
in  deeper  tints  ? 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  speaks  with  a  sneer  of  "  such 
as  care  not  to  understand  the  architecture  of  the 
heavens,  but  are  deeply  interested  in  some  con- 
temptible controversy  about  the  intrigues  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots."  Had  his  philosophy  gone  a  little 
deeper  he  would  have  guessed  the  reason.  The 
moral  laws  that  appeal  to  the  conscience  are  more 
vital  than  the  physical  laws  that  are  comprehended 
by  the  intellect.  A  story  of  human  sorrow  and  grief 
touches  the  heart  more  nearly  than  any  star  shining 
in  the  milky  way.  In  the  practical  problems  before 
us  we  feel  an  interest  that  we  cannot  feel  in  any 
question  of  astronomy.  Life  and  death  are  more 
mysterious,  more  awful,  than  gravitation  or  chemical 
affinity  ;  what  we  are,  and  what  we  shall  be,  we  are 
forced  to  ask  ourselves  with  a  solicitude  that  no  in- 
quiry about  the  origin  of  species  or  the  law  of  met- 
amorphosis can  ever  cause  ;  heirs  of  immortal 
hopes,  even  Mr.  Huxley's  question  whether  all  pro- 
toplasm be  not  proteinaceous,  does  not  sum  up  all 
we  want  to  know  ! 

In  thus  defining  the  class  of  studies  which  must 
form  the  basis  of  all  high  and  generous  culture,  I  am 
not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  some  of  the  studies 
which  I  have  grouped  under  the  broad  designation  of 
literary,  in  distinction  from  scientific,  as  moral  phi- 
losophy and  history,  admit  scientific  method,  and  are 
commonly  classed  among  the  sciences.     Moral  phi- 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        93 

losophy  has  always  held  this  rank,  nor  is  there  any 
reason  why  it  should  be  refused  to  history.  For  if 
not  the  foundation,  history  is  undeniably  the  veri- 
fication of  the  social  sciences.  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith, 
with  a  singular  confusion  of  ideas,  complains  that 
the  founders  of  the  new  physical  science  of  history 
have  to  lay  the  foundation  in  what  seems  the  quick- 
sand of  free  will.  "  Let  those,"  says  he,  "  who  have 
studied  the  science  of  man  and  history,  predict  a 
single  event  by  means  of  these  sciences."  This  ob- 
jection springs  from  an  altogether  exaggerated  and 
erroneous  notion  of  what  science  undertakes  to  do. 
Prediction  is,  under  no  circumstances,  part  of  its 
proper  function.  Science  simply  discerns  a  certain 
order,  and  is  only  competent  to  say  that  in  case  that 
order  be  maintained,  results  that  are  involved  in  it 
may  be  expected.  It  does  not  detract  from  the 
claim  of  medicine  to  be  called  a  science  that  the 
most  skillful  physician  cannot  predict  the  day  and 
the  hour  when  some  individual  patient  will  be  struck 
with  sudden  death  :  it  does  not  detract  from  the 
claim  of  geology  to  be  called  a  science  that  no  ob- 
servation of  Murchison  or  Dana  could  forewarn  men 
of  the  frightful  convulsion  that  devastated  South 
America.  This  line  between  the  physical  and  moral 
sciences,  with  reference  to  prediction,  has  been  al- 
together too  loosely  drawn.  Says  a  much  more 
discriminating  thinker  than  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  I 
mean  the  late  Sir  Cornewall  Lewis  :  "  Positive  poli- 
tics, like  anatomy  or  physiology,  does  not,  properly 
speaking,  predict  anything,  though  it  furnishes  gen- 
eral truths,  by  which  the  determination  of  future 
facts  may  be  facilitated."  History,  in  this  respect, 
differs  from  the  physical  sciences  chiefly  in  the  fact 
that  its  phenomena  do  not  repeat  themselves. 


94         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

But  while  I  thus  claim  for  history,  equally  with 
moral  philosophy  or  psychology,  the  application  of 
scientific  method,  and  trace  all  the  advance  made  in 
this  study,  in  recent  times,  to  the  recognition  of  this 
fact,  I  am  just  as  much  persuaded  that  the  supreme 
and  unequaled  value  of  those  studies  as  means  of 
culture  arises  from  precisely  those  features  of  them 
which  are  not  scientific.  It  is  not  because  moral 
philosophy  and  history  may  be  ranked  as  sciences, 
as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  and  men  of  his  school 
would  argue,  but  because  they  are  much  more  than 
sciences,  and  because  they  introduce  the  mind  to 
the  presence  of  mysteries  too  august  and  unfath- 
omable to  be  brought  within  the  confines  of  any 
sciences,  that  their  educational  influence  is  so  enno- 
bling. So  soon  as  they  are  reduced  to  the  rank  of 
mere  sciences  we  have  but  the  skeleton  remaining. 
We  are  like  the  poet  when  he  had  fetched  his  sea- 
born treasures  home,  and  found 

"  The  poor,  unsightly,  noisome  things 
Had  left  their  beauty  on  the  shore, 
With  the  sun  and  the  sand  and  the  wild  uproar." 

Take  such  a  system  as  that  of  Bain,  where  moral 
philosophy  is  merged  in  psychology,  and  where 
psychology  in  turn  is  rooted  in  physiology,  the  inner 
sanctuary  of  the  reason  being  reduced  to  a  mere 
phantasy  of  consciousness.  Whatever  may  be  the 
merits  of  such  a  system  as  a  dry  outline  map  of  the 
human  faculties,  what  satisfaction  can  it  afford  to  a 
mind  putting  itself  those  questions  which,  in  its 
deeper  moods,  it  can  never  fail  to  put.  How  does  it 
help  us  to  conceive  of  our  thinking,  feeling  selves  as 
only  complex  bundles  of  nerve-currents,  all  diversi- 
ties of  knowledge  and  belief,  of  character  and  genius, 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        95 

resulting  from  their  endless  action  and  reaction  ? 
What  interest  would  this  study  of  ourselves  retain 
were  it  thus  cut  off  from  the  deeper  ontological 
questions  in  which,  like  all  the  physical  sciences,  it 
lies  imbedded  ? 

"  Sure,  He,  that  made  us  with  such  large  discourse, 
Looking  before  and  after,  gave  us  not 
That  capability  and  godlike  reason 
To  fust  in  us  unused." 

Or,  take  such  a  view  of  history  as  that  of  the  late 
Mr.  Buckle,  when  the  imposing  range  of  illustration 
served  for  a  time  to  veil  the  shallowness  of  thought. 
According  to  this  writer,  history  is  simply  scientific  '• 
"  For  in  the  moral,"  he  says,  "  as  in  the  physical 
world,  nothing  is  anomalous,  nothing  is  unnatural, 
nothing  is  strange  ;  all  is  order,  symmetry,  and  law." 
In  other  words,  there  is  no  interest  for  us  in  the 
checkered  story  of  human  progress,  more  touching, 
more  profound,  than  that  with  which  we  watch  the 
growth  of  a  cactus,  or  note  the  pathway  of  a  comet. 
Hence  the  conditions  of  human  progress  are  intel- 
lectual, not  moral ;  the  chief  concern  of  the  student 
is  with  tables  of  statistics ;  he  can  rise  no  higher 
than  the  recognition  of  regular  phenomena  ;  all  idea 
of  an  over-arching  destiny,  or  a  directing  Provi- 
dence, is  scouted  as  absurd.  History  is  made  by 
this  method  merely  a  register  of  such  facts  as  may 
be  grouped  and  classified  in  some  petty  system,  its 
pages  as  dry  and  lifeless  and  uninspiring  as  those  of 
last  year's  almanac. 

No  one,  of  course,  who  admits  a  progress  in  the 
history  of  humanity  can  deny  the  presence  of  some 
controlling  principle  by  which  that  progress  has 
been  shaped.     But  when  we  say  that  the  course  of 


96  THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

nature  is  determined  by  invariable  laws  we  should 
remember  that  while  those  laws  are  invariable  in 
their  nature,  they  are  subject  to  incessant  variation 
in  their  application.  History,  like  nature,  is  gov- 
erned by  variable  combinations  of  invariable  forces. 
In  this  sense  law  is  not,  as  commonly  conceived,  an 
adamantine  barrier ;  it  is  not  rigid,  not  immutable, 
not  invariable;  it  is  plastic,  subtle,  changeful,  these 
endless  transformations  being  determined  by  a  reg- 
nant principle  that  lies  behind  the  veil  of  phenomenal 
existence.  What  we  dignify  with  the  name  of  laws 
are  but  methods  of  a  supreme  will.  "  The  supernat- 
ural order,"  says  Ozanam,  "  rules,  enlightens,  and 
fertilizes  the  order  of  nature,"  and  the  principle  is 
just  as  true  when  applied  to  history.  As  the  events 
of  history  are  in  part  results  of  will,  a  physical 
theory  fails  to  account  even  for  the  physical  facts. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  Aristotle's  maxim  that  poe- 
try is  more  weighty  and  philosophical  than  history  ; 
for  those  of  us  who  have  never  read  it  in  the  original 
must  have  come  across  it  in  the  fine  paraphrase  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney.  And  using  the  term  history  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  defined  in  the  preface  of  Polyb- 
ius,  the  maxim  is  correct  ;  for  as  Sidney  puts  it, 
"  the  historian  is  tied,  not  to  what  should  be,  but  to 
what  is  ;  to  the  particular  truth  of  things  ;  not  to 
the  general  reason."  Yet  Revelation  has  given  his- 
tory a  meaning  which  not  even  Thucidides  con- 
ceived. We  tread  the  shores  of  a  new  world  when 
we  turn  from  the  gloomy  pages  of  Tacitus  to  the 
triumphant  visions  of  Augustine.  Bossuet,  Vico, 
Bunsen,  mark  successive  phases  of  a  change  by 
which  history  from  being  a  mere  discipline  for  the 
practical  administration    of   affairs,    has    become   a 


THE  METHOD    OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE. 


97 


study  of  human  destiny,  addressed  less  to  the  lower 
than  to  the  higher  reason  ;  equally  with  poetry  an 
intuition  of  the  spiritual,  the  universal,  the  eter- 
nal. "The  highest  idea  of  history,"  says  Schelling, 
"can  never  be  realized  through  the  understanding." 

With  this  view  of  history  as  a  progressive,  ever 
unfolding  verification  and  illustration  of  spiritual 
truths,  I  feel  that  its  influence  in  giving  tone  and 
shape  to  all  higher  culture  can  hardly  be  exagge- 
rated. The  true  historic  spirit  will  always  be  a 
liberal,  a  catholic,  but  at  the  same  time  a  humble,  a 
reverential  spirit.  Says  Carlyle  :  "Science  has  done 
much  for  us  ;  but  it  is  a  poor  science  that  would 
hide  from  us  the  great,  deep,  sacred  infinitude  of 
nescience,  whither  we  can  never  penetrate,  upon 
which  all  science  swims  as  a  mere  superficial  film." 
We  learn  tolerance  as  we  see  how  strangely  mixed 
in  all  men's  beliefs  have  been  truth  and  error  ;  we 
look  with  distrust  on  our  most  cherished  plans  of 
reform  as  we  remember  how  the  hopes  of  the  best 
and  wisest  have  been  often  baffled  ;  and  bearing  in 
mind  how  this  great  mystery  of  Time,  that  rolls  on 
without  haste,  without  rest,  is  but  a  moment  em- 
bosomed in  eternity,  we  murmur  "  Who  is  worthy 
to  open  the  Book  and  to  loose  the  seals  thereof  ? " 

History,  Philosophy,  Poetry,  Art,  these  are  then 
the  sources  of  that  supreme  culture  in  which  the 
ideal  of  academic  method  is  reached.  How  urgent 
the  need  of  such  culture  in  this  age  and  this  land  I 
need  not  add.  We  hear  much  about  an  education 
suited  to  the  times.  But  an  education  truly  suited 
to  the  times  is  not  such  a:i  education  as  the  times 
ask  for,  an  education  that  flatters  our  overweening 
conceit  of   material    progress,   that  drives    us    with 

7 


93         THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE. 

new  force  along  the  path  on  which  we  are  already 
rushing  with  railroad  speed  ;  we  want  a  corrective 
for  this  distemper  ;  a  power  that  shall  struggle  with 
these  debilitating  influences,  and  strengthen  our  civ- 
ilization at  precisely  those  points  where  it  is  most 
weak.  Culture  should  lead,  not  follow.  That  in- 
definite tribunal  which  goes  under  the  convenient 
designation  of  "public  sentiment"  has  no  right  to 
meddle  with  these  high  matters.  "  The  end  of  edu- 
cation," says  Richter,  "  is  to  elevate  above  the  spirit 
of  the  age." 

In  our  politics,  which  are  allowed  to  usurp  such  a 
disproportioned  share  of  our  time  and  thought,  how 
much  we  need  this  corrective  of  high  culture  to  in- 
struct us  in  the  worthlessness  of  most  of  the  results 
at  which  politicians  aim,  to  lessen  our  exaggerated 
estimate  of  the  power  of  legislation  ;  to  cure  us  of 
the  folly  of  confounding  the  right  to  vote  with  the 
grand  end  of  life  ;  in  our  religion  how  much  we 
need  it  to  enlarge  our  scope  of  doctrine  ;  to  save  us 
from  our  distressing  faith  in  mechanical  appliances  ; 
to  lift  us  above  our  little  sects  and  systems  ;  to  make 
us  realize  that  the  Son  of  Man  came  that  we  might 
have  life,  and  that  we  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly ;  in  all  our  doing  and  seeking,  in  our  business 
and  pleasure,  how  much  we  need  this  wise,  sweet, 
balanced  temper  which  takes  things  at  their  true 
value,  which  refuses  to  confound  means  with  ends  ; 
which  recognizes  all  good  ;  which  strives  after  all 
perfection !  In  our  strenuous,  uncompromising 
moods  how  gladly  should  we  welcome  this  gracious 
but  invincible  ally  ! 

I  know  it  has  been  questioned  whether  in  such  a 
social    state    as    ours    this    highest    culture  will    be 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.        99 

:ared  for.  The  unmistakable  leaning  of  an  in- 
dustrial democracy  is  towards  the  sciences.  Not 
only  do  the  sciences  admit  of  more  immediate  ap- 
plication to  those  arts  which  a  material  civilization 
rates  so  high  ;  but  their  method  and  scope  suit  the 
exaggerated  estimate  of  mere  mental  power  by  which 
such  a  civilization  is  characterized.  No  doubt  Knowl- 
edge is  power  ;  but  it  should  be  something  more. 
It  is  much  to  our  credit  as  a  people  that  we  have 
built  so  many  miles  of  railroad  and  of  telegraph  ; 
that  we  have  spanned  so  many  rivers  and  crossed 
so  many  mountain  chains  ;  but  if  this  is  all  we  have 
to  show,  we  shall  make,  after  all,  but  a  poor  figure 
among  the  nations.  It  was  a  great  thing  to  lift 
Chicago  out  of  the  mud  ;  and  so  it  was  a  great  thing 
to  pile  up  the  pyramids,  but  these  are  not  the  things 
for  which  men,  as  they  beheld  them,  have  blessed 
God. 

The  disposition  to  lay  such  undue  stress  on  things 
which  belong  to  the  mere  shell  of  life  and  do  not 
touch  its  vital  essence,  is  the  perilous  side  of  the 
great  social  and  political  experiment  which  we  are 
making.  And  the  most  discouraging  part  of  it  is 
that  the  influences  which  should  correct,  in  many 
cases  only  intensify  the  evil.  It  grieves  a  right- 
minded  man  to  see  reported  in  the  papers  the  say- 
ing of  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  that  the  Pacific  rail- 
road would  give  us  more  enlarged  conceptions  of 
the  divine  attributes.  But  men  have  walked  hum- 
bly with  God  who  went  on  foot ;  the  poor  in  spirit, 
the  meek,  the  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  peace- 
makers, were  on  the  earth  before  the  days  of  Watt 
and  Stephenson.  How  much  are  we  benefited  by 
crossing  the  continent  in  six  days,  if  our  object  is 


100       THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

greedy  and  selfish  ;  why  lay  new  wires  beneath  the 
Atlantic  waves  if,  after  all, 

— "  the  light-outspeeding  telegraph 
Bears  nothing  on  its  beams  ? " 

Does  it  seem  that  Religion  is  the  corrective  for 
all  this  ?  But  the  working  of  the  religious  senti- 
ment is  always  shaped  by  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  manifests  itself.  In  its  specific  forms  it 
too  often  loses  sight  of  its  final  aim.  This  aim  is 
the  constant  clothing  of  man  in  the  stature  of  an 
ampler  spiritual  completeness  ;  but,  alas,  man's  own 
apprehension  of  this  aim  is  blurred  and  indistinct, 
so  that  religion,  instead  of  being  the  spur  to  all  per- 
fection, becomes  the  excuse  for  narrowness,  for  rest- 
ing satisfied  with  a  stunted  and  enfeebled  growth. 
And  just  in  proportion  as  the  religious  sentiment  is 
sincere  and  powerful  does  it  often  become  a  barrier 
to  progress.  A  man  of  limited  intellectual  range, 
who  is  at  the  same  time  a  man  of  sincere  religious 
conviction,  is  apt  to  be  the  most  impracticable  and 
unreasonable  of  men.  Nowhere  is  the  illumination 
of  sound  culture  so  much  needed  as  in  that  sphere 
where  the  confounding  of  light  and  darkness  entails 
such  disastrous  consequences. 

In  no  country  in  the  world  is  the  religious  senti- 
ment so  genuine,  so  energetic,  as  with  us,  and  no- 
where does  there  exist  such  multiplicity  of  sects, 
such  endless  disposition  to  lay  exclusive  stress  on 
single  truths,  such  unhealthy  fostering  of  selfish  in- 
stincts of  spiritual  life.  It  is  pitiful  to  think  of  the 
ideal  of  Christianity  enforced  in  much  of  our  relig- 
ious literature,  and  by  so  many  of  our  religious 
teachers.  I  would  not,  in  the  least,  underrate  the 
real   good   that  religion   achieves   even  in  its  most 


THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE.      IOI 

imperfect  forms.  It  is  the  infirmity  of  our  nature, 
that  we  see  in  part,  but  surely  it  should  be  our  con- 
stant aim  to  seek  after  better  things.  We  have  a 
superabundant  religious  energy.  We  rush  about  do- 
ing good  with  only  less  of  zeal  than  we  rush  about 
in  pursuit  of  money  ;  we  carry  the  Gospel  into  all 
the  earth.  But,  after  all,  the  kingdom  cometh  with- 
out observation.  There  are  things  more  to  be  de- 
sired than  making  proselytes  or  multiplying  churches. 

If  we  are  ever  to  have  this  high  culture  in  the 
United  States,  is  it  not  clear  that  our  colleges  must 
be  its  nurseries  ?  Is  not  this  the  proper  aim  of  that 
distinctive  academic  method,  which  I  have  been  all 
along  asserting  ?  Is  it  not  the  supreme  function  of 
our  colleges  to  supply  this  gracious  and  ennobling 
ministry?  "The  American  College,"  as  President 
Eliot  has  truly  said,  "  is  an  institution  without  a 
parallel."  Its  aim  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
aim  of  the  common  school,  which  seeks  to  effect  the 
greatest  good  for  the  greatest  number,  nor  with 
the  aim  of  the  scientific  or  professional  school,  which 
aims  at  special  results  in  a  particular  direction. 
The  training  of  a  college,  to  be  effective,  must  be, 
to  a  considerable  degree,  exclusive  ;  it  eliminates 
the  best  material,  and  aims  at  the  highest  mark  ; 
achieving  its  end,  not  in  any  special  preparation  for 
special  avocations,  but  in  the  enlargement  of  the 
whole  nature,  in  the  expansion  of  the  spiritual  senses 
\o  just  and  adequate  apprehension  of  all  the  ends  of 
living. 

We  gain  nothing  by  baptizing  our  colleges  with 
high-sounding  names,  and  hopelessly  confounding 
the  object  of  academic  with  the  object  of  univer- 
sity instruction.      We  need  great    universities,   in- 


102       THE  METHOD    OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

stitutions  where  the  highest  instruction  shall  be 
communicated  in  all  departments,  where  libraries, 
cabinets,  and  all  scientific  apparatus,  shall  be  pro- 
vided ;  but  we  shall  get  them  soonest,  not  by  wiping 
out  our  old  college  course,  but  by  making  it  more 
distinctive  and  exacting.  It  cannot  be  recognized 
too  clearly,  that  the  functions  of  the  college  and  uni- 
versity are  distinct.  The  university  cannot  be  too 
varied  in  its  courses  ;  cannot  be  too  well  furnished 
with  collections  of  every  kind  ;  is  better  for  standing 
in  a  great  centre,  and  being  thronged  with  crowds 
of  eager  students  ;  but  the  best  results  of  college 
discipline  are  secured  by  severe  training  in  few 
studies  ;  great  libraries  and  museums  are  not  essen- 
tial, and  an  increase  of  students  beyond  a  certain 
limit  is  an  evil.  The  aim  should  be,  not  so  much 
to  have  many,  as  to  have  them  carefully  matched. 
The  question  has  been  asked,  whether  in  the  fun- 
damental idea  of  the  college,  we  are  not  at  fault. 
Before  we  decide  this  question,  let  us  remember 
that  in  this  country  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
college  has  never  yet  been  realized.  Our  oldest  in- 
stitutions were  founded  just  at  the  crisis  when,  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  the  colleges  were  supplant- 
ing the  old  mediaeval  universities,  and  hence  they 
received  the  name  of  colleges.  And  no  doubt  when 
the  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  College  were 
incorporated  the  purpose  was  to  introduce  the  Eng- 
lish college  system.  But  whatever  the  original  pur- 
pose may  have  been,  it  was  never  carried  out.  Long 
rows  of  brick  buildings,  with  less  of  architectural 
beauty  than  any  well-built  cotton  mill  may  boast,  do 
not  make  a  college.  Neither  do  dry,  formal  recita- 
tions to  a  tutor.     All  this  may  be  found  in  any  pub- 


THE   METHOD   OE  ACADEMIC   CULTURE.       IO3 

dc  school.  The  fundamental  idea  of  a  college  is 
that  of  an  academic  family.  This  is  the  substance 
of  which  our  American  college  system  retains  the 
shell  alone.  This  it  is  that  constitutes  the  distinct- 
ive excellence  of  the  English  colleges  ;  this,  that 
with  all  their  faults,  makes  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
the  seats  of  such  serene  culture,  the  haunts  of  so 
many  beautiful  and  gracious  memories.  Who  that 
has  read  the  delightful  memoir  of  Keble,  by  his  life- 
long friend  and  biographer,  Sir  John  Coleridge,  will 
need  to  be  reminded  of  that  apt  illustration  of  what 
I  mean,  in  the  charming  picture  which  he  gives  of 
college  life  at  Corpus  sixty  years  ago,  when  Thomas 
Arnold  had  just  been  elected  scholar,  a  "college," 
says  Coleridge,  "  very  small  in  its  numbers,  and 
humble  in  its  buildings,  but  to  which  we  and  our 
fellow  students  formed  an  attachment  never  weak- 
ened in  the  after  course  of  our  lives."  It  is  the 
fashion  of  the  hour  to  speak  with  contempt  of  the 
English  collegiate  system,  to  decry  the  methods  as 
antiquated,  and  the  studies  as  useless.  But  a  system 
which  kindled  the  enthusiasm  and  retained  the  af- 
fection of  two  such  opposite  natures  as  Arnold  and 
Keble,  which  armed  one  with  heroic  panoply  for  the 
thickest  of  life's  battle,  and  sent  the  other  to  a  re- 
mote country  parish,  to  lead  a  life  whose  singular 
purity  and  grace  has  breathed  itself  in  heavenly  mu- 
sic across  oceans  and  over  continents,  must  have  had 
in  it  some  feature  which  we  can  ill  afford  to  spare. 

This  subtle  charm  of  Oxford,  the  source  of  this 
deathless  fascination,  was  what  Keble,  borrowing 
a  word  from  his  favorite  Aristotle,  used  to  call  its 
y]0o%,  that  is  the  toning  or  general  color  that  it  dif- 
fused over  the  whole  character,  imparting  a  peculiar 


104       TnE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

gentleness  and  grace  to  the  habitual  exercise  of  the 
vigorous  moral  virtues.  And  who  can  fail  to  see 
that  this  peculiar  tone,  this  ineffable  and  character- 
istic grace  that  steeps  Oxford  in  sentiment,  and 
bathes  her  with  enchantment,  is  the  result  in  very 
great  measure  of  that  development  of  the  idea  of 
academic  fellowship,  which  marks  the  English  uni- 
versities from  their  great  continental  rivals.  In 
other  words,  it  is  the  distinctive  college  spirit  ;  the 
intimate  fellowship  of  scholars  gathered  under  one 
roof,  and  sitting  around  one  board ;  the  close  con- 
tact of  cultivated  minds  ;  the  familiar  exchange,  not 
only  between  men  of  the  same  rank,  but  between 
pupil  and  instructor,  meeting  in  private  chambers 
and  in  classes  of  half-a-dozen,  so  painfully  contrast- 
ing in  all  its  aspects  with  the  unloveliness  of  our 
college  life,  and  the  frigid,  formal  intercourse  of 
student  and  professor. 

We  need,  then,  to  import  into  our  academic  life  a 
different  spirit.  For,  of  course,  such  culture  as  I 
have  been  upholding  cannot  be  imparted  by  mechan- 
ical and  formal  methods.  The  impulse  must  be  liv- 
ing, personal ;  it  must  come  not  from  books,  but 
men.  The  mere  schoolmaster  is  never  more  out  of 
place  than  in  the  professor's  chair.  I  share  to  the 
full  Lessing's  contempt  for  what  he  called  profess- 
oring.  Unless  mind  touches  mind  there  will  be  no 
heat.  We  make  much  of  our  improved  methods 
and  text  books,  but  after  all  they  matter  less  than 
we  suppose.  A  genial,  opulent,  overflowing  soul  is 
the  secret  of  success  in  teaching.  To  have  read 
Euripides  with  Milton,  were  better  than  having  the 
latest  critical  edition.  Not  the  methods  but  the 
men    gave  Rugby   and    Soreze    their   fame.     And 


THE  METHOD  OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE.       1 05 

hence  the  advantage,  in  a  college,  of  smaller  num- 
bers, where  the  students,  brought  into  daily  familiar 
contact  with  superior  minds,  may  catch  uncon- 
sciously the  earnestness,  the  urbanity,  the  kindred 
glow  which  only  such  personal  contact  can  commu- 
nicate. 

All  inspirations  are  vital.  The  spirit  of  a  living 
creature  is  in  the  wheels.  It  was  in  strict  conformity 
with  this  supreme  spiritual  law  that  when  the  high- 
est, holiest  truth  was  manifested,  it  was  manifested 
in  a  Living  Person.  And  here,  that  nothing  in  this 
discussion  be  misunderstood,  let  me  distinctly  say, 
what  I  have  all  along  implied,  that  the  highest, 
most  perfect  culture  is  only  possible  through  Him 
in  whom  alone  we  are  made  complete.  For  I  have 
aimed  to  show  that  culture  is  not  simply  intellec- 
tual, but  covers  the  whole  nature.  It  is  such  quick- 
ening of  the  vital  springs  of  being  as  can  come  only 
from  a  person.  It  is  love  of  the  Supreme  Perfec- 
tion, such  love  as  can  only  be  created  by  an  in- 
ward loving  apprehension  of  Him  in  whom  it  was 
revealed.  The  goal  of  human  perfection  can  be 
reached  in  no  other  way.  Without  this  personal 
fellowship  with  the  Incarnate  Life  and  Truth,  we 
are  cut  off  from  the  Sovereign  Quickener.  We  hew 
out  for  ourselves  broken  cisterns  instead  of  drink- 
ing of  that  river  of  God  which  is  full  of  water.  We 
garnish  a  sepulchre  which  within  is  full  of  rotten- 
ness and  death. 

And  as  the  supreme,  all  constraining  power  of 
the  Great  Teacher  was  rooted  in  his  transcendent 
personality,  in  itself  a  judgment  of  all  evil,  an  allure- 
ment to  all  good,  so  in  a  lower  sense  is  it  not  less 
true   of    all   teachers.       We    have   been    discussing 


106       THE  METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC  CULTURE. 

methods  ;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  method,  after 
all,  is  secondary.  "To  write  well,"  says  Milton,  "a 
man  must  be  himself  a  poem  ;  "  so  to  teach  well 
his  inmost  soul  must  be  imbued  with  the  sweetness, 
the  generosity,  the  simplicity  of  that  divine  philoso- 
phy which  it  is  his  highest  duty  to  inculcate.  The 
springs  which  he  causes  to  gush  forth  can  never 
rise  higher  than  their  fount.  We  cannot  be  too 
earnestly  persuaded  that  all  fruitful  academic  re- 
form must  find  its  beginning  here.  And  if  our  col- 
leges are  destined  ever  to  become  the  seats  of  this 
serene  culture,  the  chosen  haunts  of  those  gracious, 
ennobling  influences,  it  will  be  chiefly  for  the  reason 
that  those  to  whom  the  sacred  office  of  instruction 
is  intrusted,  warming  to  their  work,  and  gathering 
their  pupils  about  them  in  an  emulation  and  rivalry 
of  love,  shall  wield  that  spontaneous,  rhythmic  influ- 
ence which  flows  "  from  soul  to  soul,  and  lives  for- 
ever and  forever." 

I  have  been  asserting  a  distinctive  academic  cul- 
ture. It  has  been  my  aim  to  show  that  the  prog- 
ress of  knowledge,  the  immense  increase  in  the  ex- 
tent and  variety  of  the  sciences,  instead  of  rendering 
the  need  of  this  distinctive  culture  less,  has  only 
made  it  greater.  Let  us  banish  the  false  notion  of 
any  antagonism  between  this  culture,  and  education 
that  has  a  different  scope  and  aim.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  depreciate  the  value  of  specific  technical 
training  in  order  to  exalt  the  worth  of  this  more 
complete  development.  Such  an  institution  as  the 
Technological  School  in  Boston  is  doing  a  good 
work.  It  supplies  a  need  which  our  colleges  could 
supply  only  through  the  sacrifice  of  a  greater  good. 
I  approve  its  method,  and  rejoice  in  its  success.     In 


THE   METHOD   OF  ACADEMIC   CULTURE.       \OJ 

our  common  schools  we  are  doing  a  better  work. 
We  cannot  forget  that  the  great  mass  of  the  com- 
munity, from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  can  receive 
no  other  training  than  they  receive  here.  I  advo- 
cate a  distinctive  academic  culture,  not  in  place  of 
these,  not  in  opposition  to  them,  but  in  alliance  with 
them,  to  preside  over  and  direct  them.  I  advocate 
it,  because  scientific  training,  unless  regulated  and 
qualified  by  a  broader  culture,  can  only  end  in  de- 
bilitating, instead  of  enlarging,  the  spiritual  nature  ; 
because  popular  instruction,  unless  constantly  in- 
vigorated and  enlightened  by  higher  intellectual 
forces,  can  move  only  in  a  dull  mechanical  routine. 
For  education  must  receive  its  shape  from  above, 
not  from  beneath.  Unless  we  do  something  to  raise 
as  well  as  to  diffuse,  there  is  danger  that  the  sneer 
of  Renan  will  prove  well  founded  and  the  New 
World  atone  for  its  neglect  of  superior  instruction, 
by  a  long  course  of  vulgarity  of  thought  and  bru- 
tality of  manners. 

I  have  not  then,  in  the  view  which  I  have  ad- 
vanced, been  pleading  for  a  puny,  dilettanti  culture  ; 
a  culture  remote  from  life  and  its  serious  concerns. 
On  the  contrary,  the  culture  I  have  been  asserting 
keeps  the  soul  in  constant,  inspiring  contact  with 
the  deepest  springs  of  action.  It  is  not  selfish  and 
individual,  but  permeates  the  whole  social  organism. 
Itself  accessible  only  to  its  elect,  its  benediction 
descends  on  all.  Its  influence  is  wide  as  the  influ- 
ence of  spiritual  truth.  For  man  liveth  not  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God. 


ADDRESS 


AT  THE 


UNVEILING    OF   THE    MONUMENT    TO    ROGER    WIL- 
LIAMS  IN   THE  CITY   OF   PROVIDENCE, 
OCTOBER   1 6,    1877. 


We  bring  to  a  close,  in  these  services,  a  long  pur- 
posed work.  A  full  year  before  yonder  shores  were 
lighted  by  the  flames  of  the  burning  Gaspee,  when 
this  State  was  still  a  dependency  of  the  British 
crown,  and  the  rule  of  George  the  Third  was  as  un- 
disputed by  the  Pawtuxet  as  the  Thames,  the  free- 
men of  Providence,  assembled  in  public  meeting, 
resolved  to  erect  a  monument  to  the  "  founder  of 
the  town  and  colony."  The  population  at  that  date 
scarcely  exceeded  four  thousand  souls,  and  it  is  un- 
likely that  anything  more  was  contemplated  than  a 
simple  memorial  to  mark  the  western  slope  where, 
for  well  nigh  a  century,  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun 
had  gently  touched  his  grave.  The  swift  march  of 
events,  the  quarrel  with  the  mother-country,  the 
pressure  of  the  revolutionary  struggle,  hindered  a 
project,  which  still  never  wholly  passed  from  mind, 
till  after  the  lapse  of  another  century  the  munificent 
bequest  of  one  of  his  lineal  descendants  made  any 
longer  delay  unworthy  of  a  prosperous  and  public- 
spirited  community.     Yet    we   need    not  deplore  a 


THE  MONUMENT  TO   ROGER    WILLIAMS.      IO9 

postponement  which  has  caused  the  original  plan  to 
be  carried  out  on  a  scale  so  far  beyond  what  was 
first  intended.  Let  us  rather  congratulate  ourselves 
that  the  final  execution  has  been  reserved  for  a  time 
when  the  real  merit  of  Roger  Williams  is  much  bet- 
ter appreciated,  and  for  a  generation  whose  ampler 
means  allow  a  more  adequate  tribute,  and  for  an 
artist,  who  charged  with  the  difficult  task  of  em- 
bodying in  ideal  form  one  of  whom  no  authentic 
likeness  has  been  preserved,  has  divined  with  such 
admirable  insight  those  characteristics  of  the  man 
which  establish  his  chief  claim  to  our  veneration. 
And  if  to  any  who  now  hear  me  it  may  seem  that 
some  more  central  or  conspicuous  site  befits  so  elab- 
orate a  work,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  statue 
of  Roger  Williams  stands  in  the  midst  of  fields 
which  he  received  as  a  free  gift  from  the  great 
sachems  Canonicus  and  Miantunnomi  in  grateful 
recognition  of  the  many  kind  services  he  had  con- 
tinually done  them,  which  for  more  than  two  cen- 
turies remained  in  the  uninterrupted  possession  of 
his  posterity,  and  which  have  only  passed  from  their 
hands  to  be  forever  preserved  for  the  public  use. 
What  more  fitting  site  could  have  been  selected 
than  a  spot  which  thus  recalls  the  estimate  in  which 
he  was  held  by  the  original  possessors  of  the  soil  ? 

These  ceremonies  would  be  incomplete  without  a 
brief  summary  of  the  career  and  services  of  him  to 
whom  we  pay  this  unusual  tribute.  In  thus  setting 
up,  with  solemn  religious  rite,  a  memorial  whose 
enduring  bronze  and  granite  shall  attest  to  coming 
generations  our  estimate  of  Roger  Williams,  we  owe 
to  ourselves,  we  owe  to  those  who  shall  gaze  upon 
it  with  respectful  interest  after  we  are  gone,  a  de- 


110  ADDRESS  AT  THE    UNVEILING   OF 

liberate  statement  of  the  grounds  on  which  that  es- 
timate is  based.     And  on  the  present  occasion  such 
a  survey  is  something  more  than  a  becoming  close 
to  these  public  exercises.     For  as  we  consider  the 
thoughtful   features  that    have  just  been  unveiled, 
we  cannot  forget  that  they  are  the   lineaments  of 
one  respecting  whom   the  judgments  of   men  have 
been  much  divided,  of  one  whose  career  has  given 
rise  to  more  difference  of  opinion  than  has  existed 
respecting  any  prominent   actor  in   our   early  New 
England  history.     There  is,  therefore,  the  more  need 
to-day  that  we  place  on  record,  even  at  the   risk  of 
reciting  a  familiar  story,  the  considerations  that  have 
moved  us  to  this  step.     A  work  which  three  gen- 
erations have  waited  to  see  finished  ought  surely  to 
be  the  fruit  of  intelligent  conviction.     Let  us  then 
seek  to  set  before  us  precisely  what  manner  of  man 
Roger  Williams  was,  and  precisely  what  work  it  was 
that  he  accomplished.     After  he    has   lain    in    the 
grave  for  well-nigh  two  hundred  years  the  time  has 
surely  come  for  an  unprejudiced  estimate    of    the 
real  service  which  he  rendered  as  well  to  this  com- 
munity, as  to  the  world.     A  proper  local  pride  may 
make  us  jealous  of   the  good  name  of   one   whose 
career  gives  the  distinctive  significance  to  our  early 
history,  yet  if  he  has  really  done  anything  worthy 
to  be  remembered,  he  does  not  stand    in    need  of 
mere  eulogium  from  us.     The  best  service  we  can 
pay  his  memory  is  to   place  him  in  his  true  light  ; 
to  assign  him  his  rightful  rank  among  the  venerated 
names  of  the  past ;  to  make  him  if  possible  stand 
forth  on  the  page  of  history  in  all  the  essential  out 
lines  of  his  character  as  clear  and  distinct  as,  by 
the  hand  of  genius,  his  visible  form  is  made  to  stand 
before  us  now. 


THE   MONUMENT   TO   ROGER    WILLIAMS.       I  1 1 

And  should  the  natural  inquiry  here  arise,  why 
has  the  merit  of  Roger  Williams  been  so  much  more 
debated  than  that  of  his  contemporaries,  some  of  the 
foremost  of  whom  have  left  on  record  such  a  gener- 
ous estimate  of  his  character  and  motives,  the  simple 
answer  is,  that  those  who  have  judged  him  most  fa- 
vorably, and  those  who  have  passed  the  most  adverse 
sentence  on  him,  have  equally  agreed  in  assigning 
the  most  conspicuous  place  to  what  was  only  a  pass- 
ing episode  in  his  career.  It  was  his  fate,  as  soon 
almost  as  he  landed  on  these  shores,  to  be  placed  in 
antagonism  with  a  singularly  compact  and  homo- 
geneous community,  a  community  whose  early  emi- 
nence in  letters  afforded  it  a  marked  advantage  in 
impressing  upon  posterity  its  own  view  of  any  trans- 
action in  which  it  bore  a  part.  It  almost  of  neces- 
sity followed,  that  when  the  earliest  attempts  were 
made  to  vindicate  his  memory,  the  line  of  attack 
became  the  line  of  defense,  and  thus  a  wholly  dis- 
proportioned  space  was  assigned  to  his  controversy 
with  the  Massachusetts  colony.  Unfortunately  those 
who  for  a  long  time  felt  most  interest  in  this  con- 
troversy failed  to  estimate  correctly  its  true  aspects. 
On  the  one  hand  it  was  hastily  assumed  that  the 
course  pursued  by  the  Puritans  could  be  success- 
fully defended  only  by  representing  Roger  Williams 
in  the  most  odious  light,  while  on  the  other  hand 
it  was  supposed  with  as  little  reason  that  his  repu- 
tation could  be  vindicated  best  by  denouncing  in 
most  unmeasured  terms  the  inconsistency  which 
fled  from  persecution  in  the  old  world  only  in  turn 
to  persecute  for  mere  opinions'  sake  in  the  new. 
Hence  Roger  Williams  came  to  be  held  up  either  as 
a  headstrong  enthusiast,  a  disturber  of  the  public 


112  ADDRESS  AT   THE    UNVEILING   OF 

peace,  or  as  a  martyr  for  conscience  sake,  who  suffered 
exile  solely  for  his  unflinching  advocacy  of  the  great 
principle  of  religious  liberty.  But  this  episode  had 
no  such  supreme  significance  as  has  been  assigned 
to  it.  Had  his  career  closed  with  this  we  should 
not  be  here  to-day,  for  it  is  not  on  any  attitude 
which  he  assumed  at  this  time,  that  his  claim  to  be 
remembered  rests.  It  is  only  in  the  light  thrown 
back  upon  it  by  subsequent  events  that  the  contro- 
versy demands  even  a  passing  notice  on  this  occa- 
sion. When  in  the  month  of  February,  1631,  Roger 
Williams  landed  at  Boston,  from  the  ship  Lyon,  he 
was  still  a  young  man.  While  very  little  is  known 
respecting  him,  his  whole  later  history  leaves  no 
doubt  that  when  young  he  was  ardent,  impulsive, 
fearless,  fond  of  disputation,  perfectly  frank  in  the 
expression  of  his  opinions.  From  the  language  with 
which  Winthrop  notes  his  arrival  as  a  "godly  min- 
ister," he  would  seem  to  have  received  orders  in  the 
English  church  ;  but  he  had  renounced  gains  and 
preferments  rather  than  act  with  a  doubting  con- 
science in  conforming  to  a  national  establishment. 
Though  he  came  on  the  flood-tide  of  the  great  Pu- 
ritan migration,  he  did  not  come  as  a  part  of  it.  It 
does  not  appear  that  he  was  specially  concerned  in 
the  memorable  enterprise  which  had  just  been  un- 
dertaken by  Winthrop  and  his  associates  ;  for  he 
never  became  a  freeman  of  the  colony  where  he 
•made  his  residence.  In  the  series  of  shrewd,  well- 
considered  steps  by  which  a  private  trading  corpo- 
ration was  silently  converted  into  a  body  politic,  he 
seems  to  have  felt  no  interest  ;  nor  was  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  experiment  a  matter  which  he  ever 
had  at  heart.     It  may  be  doubted  whether  his  mind 


THE  MONUMENT   TO   ROGER    WILLIAMS.       113 

even  took  in  its  full  dimensions.  A  man  of  specu- 
lation rather  than  action,  an  enthusiast  in  the  pur- 
suit of  ideal  truth,  he  came  a  pilgrim  to  these  shores 
in  search  not  of  a  thrifty  and  well  organized  plan- 
tation "with  a  religious  idea  behind  it,"  but  of  a 
promised  land  where  truth  and  peace  might  have 
their  "  endless  date  of  pure  and  sweetest  joys."  In 
his  own  touching  words,  he  had  "  tasted  the  bitter- 
ness of  death,"  that  he  might  "  keep  his  soul  unde- 
filed."  It  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  such  a 
man  should  come  in  conflict  with  the  community 
which  received  him  at  first  with  cordial  welcome  ; 
a  community  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of 
colonial  enterprise,  welded  together  by  a  common 
faith,  inflexibly  resolved  on  the  accomplishment  of 
definite  ends,  earnest  to  establish  a  reign  of  right- 
eousness, but  intolerant  of  difference  of  opinion,  re- 
garding liberty  of  conscience  with  equal  fear  and 
hate,  and  above  all,  a  community  where  civil  and 
religious  institutions  were  so  singularly  blended  that 
the  advancement  of  pure  religion  was  viewed  as  one 
of  the  primary  functions  of  the  civil  magistrate. 
Against  this  community,  so  jealous  of  their  rights, 
so  resolved  on  the  exclusive  enjoyment  of  them, 
"knit  together  as  one  man,  always  having  before 
their  eyes  their  commission  as  members  of  the  same 
body,"  the  headstrong  enthusiast  dashed  himself. 
He  had  hardly  landed  when  we  find  him  denoun- 
cing the  Boston  congregation  for  not  separating 
wholly  from  the  Church  of  England.  He  next 
raised  a  question  respecting  the  power  of  the  civil 
magistrate  which  cut  at  the  roots  of  the  theocratic 
system  already  so  firmly  planted  ;  he  opposed  the 
freeman's  oath  ;  and  he  did  all  this  not  in  a  period 


114  ADDRESS  AT   THE    UNVEILING   OF 

of  profound  calm  when  the  freest  discussion  of  fun- 
damental principles  might  be  safely  tolerated,  but 
at  an  anxious  crisis  when  the  very  existence  of  the 
company  was  at  stake ;  when  it  was  known  that  in 
the  Privy  Council  grave  charges  were  insinuated  that 
the  colonists  had  virtually  cast  off  their  allegiance, 
and  were  planning  to  be  wholly  separated  from  the 
church  and  laws  of  England  ;  when  an  order  in 
council  had  actually  been  obtained  for  the  produc- 
tion of  the  charter  ;  when  the  influx  of  new-comers 
threatened  to  weaken  essentially,  if  not  destroy,  that 
unity  of  belief  and  action  which  the  founders  of  the 
colony  had  regarded  as  a  fundamental  condition  of 
their  enterprise. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  course  pursued 
towards  Roger  Williams  was  not  exceptional.  What 
was  done  to  him  had  been  done  in  repeated  instances 
before.  Within  the  first  year  of  its  settlement  the 
colony  had  passed  sentence  of  exclusion  from  its 
territory  upon  no  less  than  fourteen  persons.  It 
was  the  ordinary  method  by  which  a  corporate  body 
would  deal  with  those  whose  presence  no  longer 
seemed  desirable.  Conceiving  themselves  to  be  by 
patent  the  exclusive  possessors  of  the  soil,  —  soil 
which  they  had  purchased  for  the  accomplishment 
of  their  personal  and  private  ends,  —  the  colonists 
never  doubted  their  competency  to  fix  the  terms  on 
which  others  should  be  allowed  to  share  in  their 
undertaking.  So  far  from  being  exceptionally  harsh, 
their  treatment  of  Roger  Williams  was  marked  by 
unusual  lenity.  His  "  sorrowful  winter  flight,"  when 
for  fourteen  weeks  he  was  so  severely  tossed,  "  not 
knowing  what  bread  or  bed  did  mean,"  was  no  part 
of  the  official  sentence  pronounced  against  him,  but 
hardship  which  he  voluntarily  assumed. 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER   WILLIAMS.      I  1 5 

While  there  is  some  discrepancy  in  the  contem- 
porary accounts  of  this  transaction,  there  is  entire 
agreement  on  one  point,  that  the  assertion  by  Roger 
Williams  of  the  doctrine  of  "  soul-liberty  "  was  not 
the  head  and  front  of  his  offending.  Whatever  was 
meant  by  the  vague  charge  in  the  final  sentence 
that  he  had  "  broached  and  divulged  new  and  dan- 
gerous opinions,  against  the  authority  of  magis- 
trates," it  did  not  mean  that  he  had  made  emphatic 
the  broad  doctrine  of  the  entire  separation  of  church 
and  state.  We  have  his  own  testimony  on  this 
point.  In  several  allusions  to  the  subject  in  his 
later  writings,  — and  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that 
in  a  matter  which  he  felt  so  sorely  his  memory 
would  have  betrayed  him,  —  he  never  assigns  to  his 
opinion  respecting  the  power  of  the  civil  magistrate 
more  than  a  secondary  place.  He  repeatedly  affirms 
that  the  chief  causes  of  his  banishment  were  his 
extreme  views  regarding  separation,  and  his  de- 
nouncing of  the  patent.  Had  he  been  himself  con- 
scious of  having  incurred  the  hostility  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts colony  for  asserting  the  great  principle 
with  which  he  was  afterwards  identified,  he  would 
surely  have  laid  stress  upon  it.  It  is  true  that  al- 
most from  the  day  he  landed,  some  form  of  this 
principle  seemed  floating  before  his  mind.  One  of 
the  very  earliest  charges  brought  against  him  was, 
having  broached  the  novel  opinion  that  the  magis- 
trate might  not  punish  the  breach  of  the  Sabbath, 
nor  any  other  offense  against  the  first  table ;  and  in 
the  final  proceedings  this  same  offense  was  made 
the  ground  of  the  foremost  accusation  brought 
against  him.  It  is  clear  that  the  conviction  had  a 
strong  hold  upon  his  own  mind,  and  it  is  not  un- 


Il6  ADDRESS  AT  THE   UNVEILING   OF 

likely  that  "  in  the  spacious  circuits  of  his  musing  " 
he  .already  saw  the  fundamental  place  it  held ;  but 
it  is  equally  clear  that  in  the  long  controversy  it 
had  become  covered  up  by  other  issues,  and  that 
his  opponents,  at  least,  did  not  regard  it  as  his  most 
dangerous  heresy.  So  far  as  it  was  a  mere  specula- 
tive opinion  it  was  not  new.  It  had  been  explicitly 
affirmed  in  the  Confession  of  the  English  Baptists 
at  Amsterdam,  put  forth  in  the  year  1611,  and,  ac- 
cording to  Cotton,  there  were  many  known  to  hold 
this  opinion  in  Massachusetts,  who  were  tolerated 
"  not  only  to  live  in  the  commonwealth,  but  also  in 
the  fellowship  of  the  churches." 

I  repeat  that  the  reputation  of  Roger  Williams 
has  suffered  because  such  undue  importance  has 
been  assigned  to  the  transaction  which  I  have  just 
narrated.  When  carefully  examined  it  will  be  seen 
that  no  such  significance  belongs  to  it.  To  upbraid 
the  Puritans  as  unrelenting  persecutors,  or  extol 
Roger  Williams  as  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  relig- 
ious liberty,  is  equally  wide  of  the  real  fact.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  controversy  had  its  origin  in  the 
passionate  and  precipitate  zeal  of  a  young  man 
whose  relish  for  disputation  made  him  never  unwill- 
ing to  encounter  opposition,  and  on  the  other,  in 
the  exigencies  of  a  unique  community,  where  the 
instincts  of  a  private  corporation  had  not  yet  ex- 
panded into  the  more  liberal  policy  of  a  body  politic. 
If  we  cannot  impute  to  the  colony  any  large  states- 
manship, so  neither  can  we  wholly  acquit  Roger 
Williams  of  the  charge  of  mixing  great  principles 
with  some  whimsical  conceits.  The  years  which  he 
passed  in  Massachusetts  were  years  of  discipline 
and  growth,  when  he  doubtless  already  cherished  in 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      I  I J 

his  active  brain  the  germs  of  the  principles  which 
he  afterwards  developed ;  but  the  fruit  was  destined 
to  be  ripened  under  another  sky.  Though  he  him- 
self, at  a  later  period,  complained  bitterly  of  the 
treatment -which  he  had  received,  yet  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  for  him  exile  from  Massachusetts  was 
an  incalculable  boon.  As  rightly  put  by  his  great 
antagonist,  John  Cotton,  though  in  a  far  deeper  and 
truer  sense  than  was  intended,  "  it  was  not  banish- 
ment, but  enlargement,"  —  it  determined  him  to  an- 
other, a  wider,  a  far  more  beneficent  career.  Had 
he  remained  in  Massachusetts,  he  would  only  be 
remembered  as  a  godly  but  contentious  Puritan 
divine.  Removed  for  a  time  from  the  heated  at- 
mosphere of  controversy,  he  first  saw  in  its  true 
proportions  the  great  principle  which  has  shed  en- 
during lustre  on  his  name.  His  personal  character- 
istics also  present  themselves  in  a  far  more  engaging 
light  when  winning  the  confidence  of  the  shy  Narra- 
gansett  sachems,  than  in  wrangling  with  his  breth- 
ren of  the  bay.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  Win- 
throp  himself  had  some  presentiment  of  this  larger 
future  that  lay  before  the  exile,  when,  with  the  kind- 
ness that  never  failed,  he  urged  Williams  to  steer 
his  course  to  these  shores,  "  for  many  high,  heavenly 
and  public  ends."  I  pass  gladly  to  consider  him  as 
he  emerges  on  this  new  stage,  where  his  admirable 
qualities,  his  benevolence,  his  intellectual  breadth, 
his  rare  spiritual  insight  were  revealed  in  their  clear- 
est light.  The  solemn  bar  before  which  the  actors 
in  the  world's  history  are  made  to  pass  for  judgment 
is  not  a  petty  police-court,  turning  its  microscopic 
eye  simply  on  their  shortcomings,  but  a  tribunal 
which  weighs  the  good  against   the  evil  that  men 


I  1 8  ADDRESS  A  T  THE   UNVEILING  OF 

have  done,  and  which  fulfills  its  high  and  sacred 
functions  not  less  in  applauding  the  one  than  in 
condemning  the  other.  Few,  indeed,  would  remain 
to  claim  our  reverence  if  we  were  only  curious  about 
their  faults. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1636  that  Roger  Williams, 
accepting  the  hint  privately  conveyed  from  Win- 
throp  as  a  "voice  from  God,"  began  to  build  and 
plant  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Seekonk,  a  little 
distance  above  the  present  Central  Bridge.  But 
upon  receiving  from  the  authorities  of  Plymouth  a 
friendly  intimation  that  he  had  settled  within  their 
bounds,  he  cheerfully,  though  with  great  inconven- 
ience to 'himself,  set  out  in  quest  of  another  habita- 
tion. Early  in  the  month  of  June,  when  external 
nature  in  this  region  is  decked  in  her  loveliest  at- 
tire, he  launched  on  this  brief  but  memorable  voy- 
age. Five  companions  were  with  him  in  his  canoe. 
The  pleasing  tradition  has  always  been  preserved 
that,  as  he  approached  the  opposite  bank,  a  group 
of  Indians  greeted  him  with  a  friendly  salutation, 
and  that  he  stepped  to  return  their  welcome  on  the 
rock  which  for  years  has  been  one  of  our  cherished 
historic  spots  ;  but  which  I  fear,  in  the  march  of 
modern  improvement,  is  destined  to  become  to  our 
children  a  mythical  locality.  Once  more  embark- 
ing, and  rounding  the  two  promontories  which,  with 
their  crowded  wharves  and  network  of  iron  rails, 
have  so  little  to  remind  us  of  the  winding  shore  and 
fair  undulations  of  peaceful  woodland  that  greeted 
his  gaze,  he  turned  to  the  north,  and  paddling  till 
he  reached  the  mouth  of  a  small  stream  which 
poured  its  limpid  current  into  a  wide  cove,  there 
made  his  final  landing.     A  spring  of  delicious  water 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      I  1 9 

gushing  from  the  foot  of  the  steep  hill  probably 
determined  the  precise  locality.  In  grateful  recog- 
nition of  the  guiding  hand  which  he  never  doubted 
had  led  him  in  all  his  way,  he  named  the  place 
Providence. 

The  name  has  become  familiar  on  our  lips  and 
few,  as  they  now  pronounce  it,  ever  pause  to  con- 
sider how  much  it  means.  It  is  a  word  that  car- 
ries with  it  a  commentary  on  the  career  of  him 
who  chose  it.  The  early  settlers  of  Massachusetts 
brought  with  them  tender  memories  of  the  homes 
they  had  left  behind.  In  the  names  which  they  se- 
lected for  their  new  settlements  they  gave  evidence 
of  the  touching  solicitude  with  which  these  memories 
were  cherished.  But  when  the  founder  of  Provi- 
dence pillowed  his  weary  head  for  the  first  time  by 
the  mouth  of  the  Mooshausic,  his  thoughts  turned 
not  to  an  earthly  home,  but  to  a  home  above. 
Thrice  an  exile  and  a  pilgrim,  he  now  saw  in  his 
dreams  only  the  open  skies  and  the  protecting 
angels  of  an  invisible  power.  Years  after,  in  writ- 
ing of  this  incident,  he  says  :  "  I  turned  my  course 
from  Salem  unto  these  parts,  wherein  I  may  say 
Peniel,  that  is,  I  have  seen  the  face  of  God."  The 
dreamy,  mystical,  unworldly  temper  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams is  nowhere  made  more  evident  than  in  this 
unique  designation  which  he  selected  for  his  infant 
settlement. 

In  thus  settling  upon  the  shores  of  the  Narra- 
gansett  nothing  was  farther  from  the  thoughts  of 
Williams  than  to  become  the  founder  of  a  new  col- 
ony. Still  less  was  it  his  aim,  like  Blackstone,  who 
was  here  before  him,  merely  to  escape  the  tyranny 
of  the  "  lords  brethren,"  and  secure  for  himself,  in 


120  ADDRESS  AT  THE   UNVEILING   OF 

solitude,  the  largest  individual  liberty.  His  end  was 
nobler  and  more  unselfish  than  that.  The  great 
purpose  that  led  him  here  was  simply  to  preach  the 
gospel  to  the  Indians  ;  to  quote  his  own  words, 
"  my  sole  desire  was  to  do  the  natives  good."  The 
impulse  surely  was  as  lofty  as  that  which  had  led 
the  Puritans,  sixteen  years  before,  to  seek  in  Massa- 
chusetts, "  a  place  of  cohabitation  and  consortship," 
where  only  those  who  adopted  their  precise  creed 
should  be  welcomed  to  their  narrow  domain.  Al- 
ready with  this  end  in  view  he  had  made,  long  be- 
fore his  banishment,  a  diligent  study  of  the  native 
languages.  "God  was  pleased,"  he  writes,  "to 
give  me  a  painful,  patient  spirit,  to  lodge  with  them 
in  their  filthy,  smoky  holes,  even  while  I  lived  at 
Plymouth  and  Salem,  to  gain  their  tongue."  His 
exile  seemed  to  open  the  door  to  this  endeavor. 
Yet  the  same  benevolence  which  had  led  him  to 
make  his  own  misfortunes  a  means  of  good  to  the 
Indians,  constrained  him  not  to  refuse  an  asylum  to 
such  as  had  suffered  like  himself.  Not  to  promote 
any  private  interest,  but  "out  of  pity,"  he  permitted 
others  to  come  with  him.  A  few  had  joined  him 
while  still  at  Seekonk  ;  more  followed  him  after  he 
had  fixed  himself  at  Providence.  The  territory  be- 
longed to  him  alone.  In  obtaining  it  he  acted  on 
the  principle  which  he  had  so  earnestly  avowed,  that 
the  Indians  were  the  rightful  proprietors  of  the 
lands  they  occupied,  and  that  no  English  patent 
could  convey  a  complete  title  to  it.  But  though  he 
was  obliged  to  mortgage  his  house  in  Salem  to  se- 
cure the  means  of  making  presents  to  the  Narra- 
gansett  sachems,  it  was  not  by  money  that  the  land 
was   purchased.     "It  was  not,"  he  affirms,  "thou- 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      121 

sands,  nor  tens  of  thousands  of  money  that  could 
have  bought  an  English  entrance  into  this  bay,  but 
I  was  the  procurer  of  the  purchase  by  that  language, 
acquaintance  and  favor  with  the  natives,  and  other 
advantages,  which  it  pleased  God  to  give  me."  -The 
land  was  conveyed  to  him  by  formal  deed  from  Ca- 
nonicus  and  Miantunnomi,  and  "was  his  as  much  as 
any  man's  coat  upon  his  back."  Thus  circumstances 
which  he  had  not  at  first  foreseen,  caused  a  modi- 
fication of  his  plan.  Desiring  to  make  his  purchase  a 
"  shelter  for  persons  distressed  for  conscience,"  and 
considering  the  condition  of  divers  of  his  country- 
men, he  "  communicated  his  said  purchase  unto  his 
loving  friends."  In  accordance  with  this  modified 
purpose,  he  executed  a  deed  giving  an  equal  share 
with  himself  to  twelve  of  his  companions,  "  and 
such  others  as  the  major  part  shall  admit  into  the 
same  fellowship  of  vote."  Such  was  the  simple  be- 
ginning of  the  little  settlement  long  known  as  the 
Providence  plantations.  Had  Roger  Williams  loved 
power,  he  might  have  secured  for  himself  some  kind 
of  preeminence.  The  philanthropic  Penn  did  not 
disdain  such  a  course.  But  the  founder  of  Provi- 
dence chose  to  admit  his  associates  on  terms  of  per- 
fect equality.  In  providing  a  shelter  for  the  poor 
and  the  persecuted,  "  according  to  their  several 
persuasions,"  he  established  a  commonwealth  in 
"  the  unmixed  form  of  a  pure  democracy." 

Still,  remarkable  as  were  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  infant  community  struggled  into  life, 
these  do  not  furnish  its  distinctive  claim  to  our  at- 
tention. It  was  not  for  the  broad  foundation  on 
which  it  rested  all  civil  power,  but  for  the  novel 
limitation  which  it  imposed  on  the  exercise  of  that 


122  ADDRESS  AT   THE    UNVEILING   OF 

power,  that  it  holds  a  place  in  history  so  dispropor- 
tioned  to  its  importance  in  every  other  respect. 
Opened  as  an  asylum  for  the  distressed  in  con- 
science, it  seems  from  the  outset  to  have  been  tac- 
itly* assumed  that  conscience  should  never  be  re- 
strained. Hence  Williams,  in  seeking  the  advice  of 
Winthrop  as  to  the  mode  by  which  the  new  settle- 
ment could  best  become  "compact  in  a  civil  way 
and  power,"  makes  no  allusion  to  the  principle  which 
he  had  asserted  so  recently  in  Massachusetts.  But 
it  would  be  absurd  to  argue  from  this  omission  that 
the  principle  had  lost  any  of  its  importance  in  his 
mind.  When  the  actual  covenant  was  drawn  up, 
which  became  the  basis  of  public  order,  in  extract- 
ing from  the  inhabitants  a  pledge  of  active  and  pas- 
sive obedience  to  all  orders,  made  by  the  major  con- 
sent, for  the  public  good,  the  provision  was  ex- 
pressly added  that  this  should  be  "  only  in  civil 
things." 

Thus,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  a  form  of  gov- 
ernment was  adopted  which  drew  a  clear  and  un- 
mistakable line  between  the  temporal  and  the  spir- 
itual power,  and  a  community  came  into  being  which 
was  an  anomaly  among  the  nations.  The  compact 
signed  by  the  Pilgrims  in  the  cabin  of  the  May- 
flower has  been  praised  as  the  earliest  attempt  to 
institute  a  government  on  the  basis  of  the  general 
good ;  surely  the  covenant  subscribed  by  the  set- 
tlers of  Providence  deserves  a  place  beside  it  as  a 
first  embodiment  in  an  actual  experiment  of  the 
great  principle  of  unrestricted  religious  liberty.  In 
either  case  the  settlements  were  small  and  the  im- 
mediate results  were  unimportant ;  but  the  princi- 
ples were  world-wide  in  their  application.    The  Prov- 


THE  MONUMENT  TO   ROGER   WILLIAMS.       1 23 

idence  document  was,  in  fact,  the  more  significant, 
since  the  political  maxim  that  lay  imbedded  in  the 
Mayflower  compact  was  implied  rather  than  con- 
sciously affirmed,  while  the  principle  to  which  Roger 
Williams  and  his  associates  set  their  hands  was  in- 
tentionally and  deliberately  adopted  as  the  corner- 
stone of  the  new  structure  they  were  building. 

The  community  which  grew  into  shape  at  Provi- 
dence embodied  in  a  "  lively  experiment  "  the  prin- 
ciple which  Roger  Williams  had  so  strenuously 
maintained.  Let  us  now  examine  his  position,  and 
ascertain  precisely  in  what  sense  this  experiment 
was  novel.  Had  we  no  other  information  than  the 
vague  charges  brought  against  him  in  Massachu- 
setts, or  the  significant  clause  attached  to  the  Prov- 
idence covenant,  his  exact  theory  would  have  re- 
mained a  matter  of  conjecture.  How  clearly  it  was 
held,  how  carefully  it  was  limited,  there  would  have 
been  no  way  of  accurately  ascertaining.  But  fortu- 
nately he  has  left  his  views  on  record,  and  we  may 
know  precisely  what  meed  of  praise  is  due  him.  He 
has  himself  supplied  us  with  abundant  means  of 
making  ourselves  familiar  with  the  arguments  with 
which  he  "maintained  the  rocky  strength"  of  his 
impregnable  position.  When  in  England,  engaged 
in  procuring  from  the  Long  Parliament  the  earliest 
patent  for  Rhode  Island,  he  found  time,  amid  en- 
grossing duties,  to  publish  his  famous  volume,  "  The 
Bloudy  Tenent  of  Persecution,  for  Cause  of  Con- 
science," and  it  is  in  this  volume,  printed  in  the 
year  1644,  that  we  find  the  first  full  expression  of 
his  opinions.  They  are  views  which  he  had  long 
been  meditating,  which  it  cannot  be  doubted  he  was 
revolving   in  some  form  when  he    first    arrived    in 


124  ADDRESS  AT  THE    UN  VET  LING   OF 

Massachusetts,  but  which,  it  can  be  as  little  doubted, 
meditation  and  experience  had  matured.  The  book 
throughout  is  of  a  piece  with  his  whole-  previous  ca- 
reer. It  was  rapidly  written  ;  as  he  tells  us  himself, 
"  in  change  of  rooms  and  corners,  yea,  sometimes  in 
variety  of  strange  houses,  sometimes  in  fields  in  the 
midst  of  travel."  The  style  is  not  unfrequently 
confused,  as  though  the  earnest  flow  of  the  writer's 
thoughts  left  the  pen  lagging  behind  ;  and  the  course 
of  the  argument  is  not  always  well  held  in  hand. 
Still  each  page  is  stamped  with  most  intense  con- 
viction, and  in  some  passages  the  language  has  a 
passionate  warmth  of  imagery  that  almost  becomes 
poetic.  The  personal  characteristics  of  Luther  are 
not  more  distinctly  revealed  in  his  writings  than 
are  those  of  Roger  Williams.  But  what  especially 
marks  the  "  Bloudy  Tenent "  is  the  clear  concep- 
tion of  one  great  principle  that  runs  through  it,  and 
the  boldness  with  which  every  logical  deduction 
from  this  principle  is  accepted. 

The  doctrine  laid  down  in  the  book  is  that  of  the 
radical  and  complete  separation  of  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  provinces.  Roger  Williams  was  profoundly 
sensible  of  the  fundamental  importance  of  religion 
to  the  welfare  of  society,  and  he  affirms  in  the  most 
emphatic  manner  the  obligation  of  every  human 
being  to  love  God  and  to  obey  his  laws.  We  could 
not  do  him  a  greater  wrong,  and  could  not  more 
completely  misapprehend  his  meaning  than  by  con- 
founding his  theory  with  the  secular  theory  which 
has  come  to  prevail  in  our  time,  which  not  only 
separates  church  and  state,  but  insists  on  regarding 
religion  as  of  secondary  consequence.  While  he  re- 
moves religion  from  the  care  of  the  civil  magistrate 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      1 25 

he  does  not  weaken  in  the  slightest  its  binding  ob- 
ligation. But  this  obligation  binds  the  soul  of  man 
only  to  his  maker ;  no  fellow-man  has  a  right  to 
come  between.  God  has  delegated  to  no  one  au- 
thority over  the  human  soul.  Under  the  old  dispen- 
sation he  prescribed  the  mode  by  which  he  chose 
to  be  worshipped,  but  under  the  new  this  was  left 
free,  and  all  human  laws  prescribing  or  forbidding 
rites  or  doctrines  not  inconsistent  with  civil  peace, 
are  an  invasion  of  the  divine  prerogative.  Belief 
cannot  be  forced  ;  to  make  the  attempt  is  only  to 
cause  hypocrisy.  To  determine  the  standard  of  be- 
lief the  civil  authority  must  be  itself  infallible  ;  if 
permitted  to  regulate  conscience,  the  magistrate  will 
only  make  his  own  views  the  standard  of  truth. 
In  these  propositions  we  have  the  great  doctrine  of 
liberty  of  conscience  first  asserted  in  its  plenitude. 

It  is  no  less  important  to  observe  how,  in  the 
clear  apprehension  of  Roger  Williams,  this  principle 
was  limited.  To  those  who  were  firmly  persuaded 
that  religion  could  only  flourish  when  protected  by 
the  state,  above  all  to  those  who  regarded  church 
and  state  simply  as  two  forms  of  the  same  thing,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  his  views  seemed  subversive 
alike  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil  order.  But  because 
he  so  warmly  opposed  the  order  then  established  in 
Massachusetts  it  by  no  means  followed  that  he  was 
opposed  to  all  order.  Here  again  we  most  griev- 
ously mistake  him  if  we  suppose  that  he  sought  to 
weaken  the  restraints  of  law.  His  temper  was  hasty 
but  not  anarchical.  When  he  affirmed  his  doctrine 
that  the  magistrate  ought  not  to  punish  the  breach 
of  the  first  table,  he  was  careful  to  add,  "  other- 
wise than    in  such  cases   as    did   disturb  the   civil 


126  ADDRESS  AT  THE   UNVEILING   OF 

peace."  In  his  treatise  we  find  this  important 
qualification  not  overlooked.  He  affirms  that  civil 
society  is  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  men,  and 
that  to  ensure  its  protection  a  sufficient  amount  of 
power  must  be  confided  to  its  rulers.  But  the  ob- 
ject of  such  a  society  is  simply  the  promotion  of 
civil  interests.  Still  the  civil  and  the  spiritual  in- 
terests of  man  are  so  inseparable  that  even  the  civil 
magistrate  has  duties  with  reference  to  religion.  If 
the  religion  be  one  that  his  own  conscience  ap- 
proves as  true,  he  is  bound  to  honor  it  by  personal 
submission  to  its  claims,  and  by  protecting  those 
who  practice  it  ;  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  religion 
be  false,  he  still  owes  it  permission  and  protection. 
But  should  a  man's  religious  opinions  lead  him  to 
practices  which  become  offensive  to  the  peace  and 
good  order  of  society,  the  civil  magistrate  is  bound 
at  once  to  interfere.  So  long,  however,  as  this  line 
is  not  passed,  not  even  pagans,  Jews,  or  Turks 
should  be  molested  by  the  civil  power ;  or,  to  quote 
his  own  words,  "  true  civility  and  Christianity  may 
both  flourish  in  a  state  or  kingdom,  notwithstand- 
ing the  permission  of  divers  and  contrary  con- 
sciences, either  of  Jews  or  Gentiles." 

To  understand  how  far  Roger  Williams  was  the 
advocate  of  a  new  principle  we  must  carefully  bear 
in  mind  that  he  was  not  arguing  simply  for  religions 
toleration.  It  is  strange  how  this  point  has  been 
misconceived  even  by  writers  who  have  devoted 
careful  study  to  the  subject.  It  is  true,  that  in  his 
letter  to  the  town  of  Providence,  so  often  quoted  as 
the  most  felicitous  expression  of  his  views,  he  seems 
to  have  in  mind  merely  the  right  of  persons  of  divers 
beliefs  to  be  excused  from  attendance  upon  the  es- 


THE   MONUMENT   TO  ROGER    WILL  1 A  MS.      12  J 

tablished  worship  ;  but  evidently  his  illustration  of  a 
ship's  company  "  not  forced  to  come  to  the  ship's 
prayers  "  is  only  a  partial  expression  of  his  theory. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  his  true  prin- 
ciple. The  doctrine  which  he  constantly  maintains 
is,  not  that  men  of  various  beliefs  should  be  toler- 
ated by  the  civil  power,  but  the  far  broader  and 
more  fruitful  principle  that  the  civil  power  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  religious  belief,  save  when 
it  leads  to  some  actual  violation  of  social  order.  In 
a  word,  what  he  advocated  was  not  religious  tolera- 
tion, but  the  entire  separation  of  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  provinces. 

Mere  religious  toleration  had  long  found  advo- 
cates. In  the  wonderful  book  which  breathes  the 
earliest  and  purest  spirit  of  the  English  reformation, 
the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  it  is  distinctly 
taught.  It  was  pathetically  urged  by  the  great 
Chancellor  de  l'Hopital  on  the  brink  of  the  precipice 
down  which  religious  fanaticism  was  precipitating 
France  ;  with  what  practical  effect  in  either  case, 
was  shown  by  the  fires  of  Smithfield  and  the  mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew.  At  the  very  time  when 
Roger  Williams  was  writing,  it  had,  in  various  forms, 
found  much  support  in  England.  With  the  meeting 
of  the  Long  Parliament  it  came  to  the  forefront  of 
discussion.  In  opposition  to  the  Presbyterian  theory 
of  an  absolute  conformity  of  the  whole  nation  to  one 
established  church,  a  theory  carried  out  in  the  adop- 
tion by  Parliament  of  the  Westminster  Confession 
and  Discipline,  there  were  those  who  advocated  a 
limited  toleration  around  a  national  establishment, 
and  those  who  advocated  an  establishment  with 
an  unlimited  toleration   of  every  religious  opinion. 


128  ADDRESS  AT   THE   UNVEILING   OF 

Roger  Williams  belonged  to  neither  of  these  par- 
ties. What  he  claimed  was  the  entire  separation  of 
religion  from  the  civil  power.  His  position  may  be 
put  in  a  still  clearer  light  by  contrasting  what  was 
done  at  Providence  with  what  was  done  at  nearly 
the  same  time  in  Maryland.  By  the  original  charter 
of  Maryland,  granted  in  1632,  Christianity  as  pro- 
fessed by  the  Church  of  England  was  protected,  but 
beyond  this,  equality  of  religious  rights  was  left  un- 
touched. The  mild  forbearance  of  Calvert  caused 
religious  freedom  to  be  established  ;  but  in  award- 
ing praise  for  this  to  a  Catholic  proprietary,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Maryland  was  not  an  inde- 
pendent Catholic  state,  but  simply  the  colony  of  a 
Protestant  kingdom.  And,  at  best,  it  was  toleration 
that  was  established.  Religious  freedom  was  a  boon 
which  the  civil  authority  had  granted,  and  which  the 
same  authority  was  competent  to  limit  or  take  away. 
So  when,  in  1649,  three  years  after  the  settlement 
of  Providence,  the  legislature  of  Maryland  placed  on 
her  statute  book  an  act  for  securing  religious  free- 
dom, it  was  expressly  extended  only  to  those  who 
professed  the  Christian  religion  ;  while  any  who  blas- 
phemed God,  or  denied  the  Trinity,  were  punished 
with  death.  Surely  no  one  can  confound  this  with 
the  doctrine  laid  down  by  Roger  Williams. 

That  Roger  Williams  completely  solved  the  diffi- 
cult problem  of  the  relation  of  church  and  state  I  do 
not  affirm.  That  problem  is  more  complex  than  he 
supposed,  and  since  his  day  it  has  assumed  aspects 
which  he  did  not  consider.  But  he  stated  it  more 
clearly  than  it  had  been  stated  by  any  earlier  writer, 
and  more  than  anticipated  Jeremy  Taylor.  He 
cleared  the  path  which  even  Massachusetts  has  been 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      1 29 

content  to  tread.  The  principle  which  he  laid  down 
is  now  the  accepted  and  fundamental  maxim  of 
American  politics.  More  than  this,  his  distinctive 
merit  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  not  only  defended  it 
as  an  abstract  principle,  but  himself  carried  it  into 
successful  operation.  In  the  ranks  of  sovereign 
honor  Lord  Bacon  assigns  the  first  to  the  founders 
of  states  and  commonwealths.  In  the  strictest  sense 
it  cannot,  perhaps,  be  claimed  for  Roger  Williams 
that  he  was  even  the  founder  of  a  colony,  for  it  was 
a  procedure  for  which  he  possessed  no  legal  author- 
ity, and  which  formed  no  part  of  his  original  plan. 
But  since  the  settlement  at  Providence  was  the  crea- 
tion of  his  benevolence,  and  crystallized  round  his 
great  idea,  and  at  last  owed  its  legal  recognition  to 
his  disinterested  labors,  it  may  look  back  reverently 
to  him  as  the  author  of  its  existence.  The  unusual 
circumstances  under  which  it  came  into  being  only 
intensifies  the  gratitude  with  which  we  hail  the 
apostle  of  religious  liberty  as  the  founder  of  Rhode 
Island. 

But  it  is  time  to  consider  more  closely  the  man 
himself.  For  this  study  the  material  is  ample.  No 
man  who  ever  lived  in  New  England  has  had  every 
defect  of  temper  so  minutely  explored  and  every  in- 
consistency of  conduct  so  unsparingly  exposed. 
The  day,  I  trust,  is  long  past  when  one  in  the  posi- 
tion in  which  I  stand  to-day,  is  expected  to  vindicate 
\  historical  character  from  every  charge.  Of  that 
sort  of  commemorative  discourse  we  have  had,  in 
New  England,  more  than  enough.  We  have  ceased 
to  think  that  in  the  days  of  the  fathers  only  angels 
were  walking  the  earth.  Let  us  then  grant,  without 
hesitation,    that    Roger  Williams  was   a   man   like 

9 


130  ADDRESS  AT  THE   UNVEILING  OF 

other  men.  Let  us  concede  that  his  "  many  pre- 
cious parts  "  were  coupled  in  the  early  part  of  his 
career  with  an  "  unsettled  judgment,"  that  his  "well 
approved  teaching "  was  mixed  with  what  seemed 
to  his  hearers  "strange  opinions,"  that  the  "judi- 
cious sort  of  Christians  "  found  him  "unquiet  and  un- 
lamblike,"  and  that  even  his  best  friends  deemed 
him  guilty  of  "  presumption "  and  condemned  his 
conduct  as  "  passionate  and  precipitate  ; "  yet  evi- 
dently all  these  are  faults  of  a  generous,  a  bold,  an 
enthusiastic  spirit.  There  was  no  quality  about  him 
that  made  him  either  hated  or  despised.  On  the 
contrary,  there  was  in  all  his  trials  a  calm  courage, 
an  abiding  patience,  a  noble  disinterestedness,  an 
unfailing  sweetness  of  temper,  an  unquestioned 
piety  that  won  for  him  the  warmest  affection  even 
of  those  who  opposed  him.  We  find  Winthrop  writ- 
ing to  him  in  words  that  do  equal  honor  to  both  : 
"  Sir,  we  have  often  tried  your  patience,  but  could 
never  conquer  it."  And  the  most  accomplished  of 
our  living  critics,  Lowell,  rises  from  the  study  of 
this  period  with  the  remark  :  "  Let  me  premise  that 
there  are  two  men  above  all  others,  for  whom  our 
respect  is  heightened  by  their  letters  —  the  elder 
John  Winthrop  and  Roger  Williams."  The  very 
weaknesses  and  eccentricities  of  Roger  Williams 
only  make  him  a  more  striking  character.  He  stands 
out  from  the  somewhat  monotonous  background  of 
Puritan  decorum,  as  the  mountains  of  his  native 
Wales  stand  out  from  the  uniform  sweep  of  the  Eng- 
lish coast.  The  recent  biographer  of  Milton  terms 
him  "  a  picturesque  figure  forever  in  early  Ameri- 
can history,"  and  adds  that  no  man  of  that  age  de- 
serves more  attention.    Must  he  not  have  had  about 


THE  MONUMENT  TO   ROGER    WILLIAMS.      131 

him  something  more  than  usually  winning,  who, 
while  still  a  youth,  so  gained  the  regard  of  that 
morose  and  ill-tempered  man  Sir  Edward  Coke,  that 
this  greatest  master  of  English  law  that  had  yet  ap- 
peared, took  care  to  further  his  education,  and  affec- 
tionately addressed  him  as  his  son  ?  It  is  interest- 
ing to  know  that  the  founder  of  Rhode  Island,  who 
in  his  writings  laid  clown  the  principle  "  that  the 
sovereign  power  of  all  civil  authority  is  founded  in 
the  consent  of  the  people,"  thus  sat  in  his  youth  at 
the  feet  of  the  illustrious  judge  who  was  sent  to  the 
tower  for  resisting  the  encroachments  of  arbitrary 
power. 

Roger  Williams  not  only  merits  our  admiration 
for  his  personal  qualities,  his  intellectual  culture 
was  also  generous  and  broad.  By  the  favor  of 
Coke,  he  was  sent  to  the  Charter-house,  then  re- 
cently founded  by  a  liberal-minded  London  mer- 
chant, Thomas  Sutton,  but  since  become  one  of  the 
most  famous  of  the  great  schools  of  England.  The 
chapel  stands  to-day,  with  the  superb  monument  of 
the  founder,  precisely  as  it  stood  when  Roger  Wil- 
liams knelt  beside  it,  reciting  the  impressive  liturgy 
of  the  English  church.  On  the  long  roll  in  which 
his  name  ranks  among  the  earliest,  are  written  the 
names  of  Barrow,  of  Addison,  of  Steele,  of  John 
Wesley,  of  Blackstone,  and  to  pass  to  our  own  time, 
of  Grote,  and  of  Thackeray ;  and  who  that  has  lin- 
gered, with  dimmed  eye,  over  the  chapters  which 
describe  the  closing  hours  of  Colonel  Newcome,  can 
forget  how  the  memories  of  this  place  have  been 
embalmed  on  the  most  nobly  pathetic  pages  of  Eng- 
lish romance  !  After  receiving  the  thorough  class- 
ical training  of  the  Charter-house,  Roger  Williams 


132  ADDRESS  AT  THE    UNVEILING   OF 

proceeded  to  Cambridge,  where  he  was  matriculated 
a  pensioner  of  Pembroke  College,  in  1625,  and  took 
his  degree  as  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1627.  Cambridge 
was  the  great  Puritan  university.  There  most  of 
the  leading  divines  of  the  New  England  churches 
received  their  education.  Thence  came  John  Cot- 
ton, Chauncy,  Buckley,  John  Eliot,  Hooker,  Norton, 
Hugh  Peters,  Shepard,  Ward,  and  others  of  the 
men  whose  piety  and  learning  did  so  much  to  give 
New  England  character  its  distinctive  shape  ;  nor 
is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  Roger  Williams, 
while  at  Cambridge,  was  a  less  apt  or  less  diligent 
scholar  than  any  of  these. 

How  diligently  these  rare  opportunities  of  culture 
were  used,  may  be  gathered  from  a  glance  at  those 
with  whom,  afterwards,  he  stood  on  a  footing  of 
most  familiar  companionship.  Through  life  his 
most  trusted  counselor  was  the  wise,  the  discrimi- 
nating, the  magnanimous  Winthrop,  who,  he  de- 
clares, "  tenderly  loved  him  to  his  last  breath." 
Next  we  find  him  winning  the  warmest  regard  of 
young  Harry  Vane,  like  himself  an  enthusiast  for 
ideal  truth,  misunderstood  by  the  community  in 
which  his  lot  was  cast,  but  a  spirit  touched  to  the 
finest  issues,  whom  even  his  enemy  Clarendon 
terms  "a  man  of  extraordinary  parts,"  and  whom 
Milton  praised  as  a  senator  unsurpassed  in  Roman 
story.  When  the  acquaintance  of  Williams  with 
Vane  began,  we  are  not  informed  ;  but  it  must  have 
been  soon  after  the  latter's  arrival  in  this  country, 
since,  in  speaking  of  the  settlement  of  Aquidneck, 
Williams  says  :  "  It  was  not  price  nor  money  that 
could  have  purchased  Rhode  Island.  It  was  pur- 
chased by  the  love  and  favor  which  that  honorable 


THE  MONUMENT   TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.      I  33 

gentleman,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  myself  had  with 
the  great  sachem  Miantonomo." 1  The  name  of 
Roger  Williams  is  peculiarly  connected  with  the 
most  brilliant  statesman  of  the  commonwealth  ;  for 
mainly  through  the  friendly  intervention  of  Vane 
the  charter  of  the  Providence  plantations  was  ob- 
tained, so  that  to  Vane,  more  directly  than  to  Wil- 
liams, Rhode  Island  owes  her  actual  political  exist- 
ence. At  the  country-seat  of  Vane,  Williams,  when 
in  England,  was  always  a  welcome  guest.  But  in 
the  circle  of  his  chosen  friends  was  one  more  fa- 
mous than  Vane.  During  his  second  visit  to  Eng- 
land, we  find  him  instructing  John  Milton  in  Dutch, 
who  in  return  read  him  "  many  more  languages." 
It  is  easy  to  surmise  how  two  such  kindred  spirits 
were  drawn  together.  When  his  "  Bloudy  Tenent  " 
had  appeared,  in  1644,  it  had  been  ranked  with  Mil- 
ton's "Treatise  on  Divorce,"  as  containing  "most 
damnable  doctrines."  They  had  stood  side  by  side 
in  the  great  battle  for  freedom  of  thought,  though 
even  Milton,  in  the  magnificent  bursts  of  his  "  Lib- 
erty of  Unlicensed  Printing,"  did  not  advocate  a 
liberty  of  conscience  so  complete  and  absolute  as 
that  claimed  by  Roger  Williams.  He  seems  to  have 
had  in  mind  rather  toleration  than  perfect  freedom. 
With  the  great  Protector,  too,  the  founder  of  Provi- 
dence was  sometimes  admitted  to  "close  discourse." 
I  need  not  pause  to  comment  on  the  kind  of  man 
he  must  have  been  who  was  permitted  even  the  oc- 
casional companionship  of  Vane,  of  Milton,  and  of 
Cromwell. 

One  of  the  most  grievous  charges  brought  against 
Roger  Williams  is  based  on  the  apparent  vacillation 
of  his   opinions.     "  He  had,"   said   Cotton   Mather, 

1   Publications  of  Narragansett  Club,  vol.  vi.,  p.  305. 


134  ADDRESS  AT  THE    UNVEILING   OF 

"  a  windmill  in  his  head."  But  these  changes  were 
far  less  significant  than  is  commonly  supposed. 
With  regard  to  the  great  principle  with  which  his 
name  is  connected,  he  never  wavered  in  the  slight- 
est. On  some  minor  points  that  entered  into  his 
controversy  with  Massachusetts,  it  is  not  unlikely 
that  experience  modified  his  views.  But  with  his 
religious  belief  there  was  very  little  change.  He 
was  a  sturdy,  uncompromising  separatist,  when  he 
renounced  the  communion  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  such  he  remained  to  the  clay  of  his  death. 
Warmly  as  he  denied  the  theocratic  theory  of  the 
churches  of  the  Bay,  he  always  cordially  approved 
their  "heavenly  doctrine."  In  no  heat  of  contro- 
versy was  he  ever  accused  of  being  a  heretic.  It  is 
true  that,  having  been  for  a  brief  period  connected 
with  the  Baptists,  he  renounced  their  communion 
and  lived  for  the  rest  of  his  days  isolated  from  all 
visible  church  fellowship.  Yet,  when  we  consider 
what  the  religious  conditions  of  the  period  were,  we 
shall  not  censure  him  severely  if,  like  Milton,  he 
shrank  from  the  Babel  of  sects  that  filled  the  age 
with  their  noise  ;  nor,  if  we  call  to  mind  how  swift 
and  how  startling  were  the  transitions  of  that  unset- 
tled time,  will  it  surprise  us  to  see  that,  like  Vane, 
Williams  was  led  to  look  for  the  speedy  revelation 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  But  whatever 
we  may  think  of  his  speculative  belief,  respecting 
his  practical  zeal  to  do  good  there  can  be  no  dis- 
pute. We  find  him  repeatedly  interposing  his  be- 
nevolent offices  to  save  from  destruction  by  the 
Indians  the  colony  which  refused  him  a  passage 
even  through  its  territory  ;  we  find  him  interrupting 
his  arduous  labors  in   London  to  aid  in  providing 


THE  MONUMENT   TO   ROGER    WILLIAMS.       1 35 

the  suffering  poor  of  that  city  with  fuel  ;  above  all, 
we  find  him  at  all  times,  on  the  land  and  on  the  sea, 
yearning  to  promote  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  In- 
dians. Eliot  has  won  the  name  of  the  Indian  Apos- 
tle ;  but  ten  years  before  Eliot  preached  his  first 
sermon  to  the  Indians,  Roger  Williams  had  conse- 
crated himself  to  this  missionary  work  ;  not  sent  out 
by  a  powerful  and  wealthy  board,  and  followed  with 
the  prayers  of  thousands,  but  driven  forth  an  exile, 
and  selling  his  house  even,  "that  he  might  do  the 
natives  good." 

To  the  seeker  whose  adventurous  thought  carried 
him  further  than  any  of  his  time  in  the  exploration 
of  a  novel  principle ;  to  the  wise  master-builder 
whose  faith  in  this  principle  did  not  falter  when 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of  an  experiment 
which  to  so  many  seemed  subversive  of  social  order; 
to  the  scholar  who,  trained  in  the  languages  of  the 
old  world,  wrought  the  first  key  for  unlocking  the 
dialects  of  the  new  ;  to  the  philanthropist  whose 
abounding  charity  recognized  no  distinction  of  race 
or  tongue,  we  erect  this  statue !  Why  need  I  say 
more?  The  muse  of  history  has  already  written  her 
imperishable  record  ;  the  marvelous  touch,  that  en- 
dows marble  and  bronze  with  life,  has  set  him  before 
us  with  a  reality  that  words  can  only  feebly  counter- 
feit ! 

An  epoch  is  marked  in  the  history  of  a  commu- 
nity when  it  thus  pauses  to  conquer  forgetfulness. 
We  rise  to  higher  levels  as  we  recognize  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  past ;  as  we  commerce  with  the  great  and 
good  who  have  gone  before  us,  and  whose  examples 
are  our  most  precious  possession.  And,  still  more 
is  this  the  case,  when  we  invoke  the  aid  of  art  to  in- 


I36  ADDRESS  AT   THE    UNVEILING   OF 

vigorate  these  ennobling  influences,  and  when  we 
consecrate  to  the  departed,  memorials  whose  very 
presence  among  us  breeds  gracious  and  perpetual 
benediction.  Let  us  rejoice  that  in  making,  to-day, 
this  lavish  offering,  we  have  at  the  same  time  en- 
riched ourselves.  Here  have  we  placed  our  statue  of 
Roger  Williams,  and  here  let  it  stand  ;  here  in  a  se- 
clusion allowing  the  thoughtful  study  which  its  vari- 
ous excellence  exacts;  here  amid  the  fields  which  he 
once  received  from  Canonicus  ;  here  in  solemn  com- 
panionship with  kindred  dust  !  Here  let  it  stand ! 
Here  let  returning  seasons  greet  it  ;  here  let  men 
as  they  rest  from  labor,  here  let  children  as  they 
turn  from  play,  gaze  with  reverence  at  him  who 
chose  rather  to  taste  the  bitterness  of  death  than  to 
act  with  a  doubting  conscience. 


NOTE. 

Roger  Williams,  according  to  the  most  trustworthy  tradi- 
tion, was  a  native  of  Wales,  and  was  born  near  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  a  document  dated  July  21,  1679,  he 
speaks  of  himself  as  "  being  now  near  to  fourscore  years  of 
age."  During  his  youth,  he  lived  for  a  time  in  London,  where 
he  attracted  the  notice  of  Coke.  He  was  elected  a  scholar  of 
the  Charter-house,  June  25,  1621  ;  and  was  matriculated  a  pen- 
sioner of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  July  7,  1625.  He  took 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  January,  1627.  His  signature 
is  still  preserved  in  the  subscription  book  of  the  University. 
From  this  date  till  he  left  England  there  is  no  record  respect- 
ing him,  but  from  an  incidental  statement  in  the  "  Bloudy 
Tenent  yet  more  Bloudy"  it  has  been  surmised  that  he  lived 
in  Lincolnshire.  He  sailed  from  Bristol,  with  his  wife  Mary, 
in  the  ship  Lyon,  December  1,  1630,  and  after  a  voyage  of 
sixty-six  clays,  arrived  off  Nantasket,  February  5,  163 1.  Ac- 
cording to  his  own  account  he  was  invited,  soon  after,  to  be- 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  ROGER    WILLIAMS.       1 37 

come  teacher  of  the  Boston  church,  in  place  of  Wilson  who 
was  about  returning  to  England,  but  declined  the  offer  because 
he  "durst  not  officiate  to  an  unseparated  people."  The  state- 
ment that  he  was  admitted  freeman,  arose  from  the  fact  that 
another  of  the  same  name  was  in  the  colony,  whose  application 
was  made  nearly  four  months  before  the  Lyon  arrived.  In 
April,  163 1,  he  was  invited  to  the  church  at  Salem,  but  the 
authorities  interfered,  and  during  the  summer  he  went  to  Plym- 
outh, where  he  became  assistant  to  Rev.  Ralph  Smith.  While 
here  he  composed  a  "  treatise  "  against  the  Patent,  which  was 
submitted  to  the  examination  of  the  magistrates  in  December, 
1633,  and  the  author  was  cited  to  the  next  session  of  the  court 
"to  be  censured,"  but  on  his  expressing  submission,  the  matter 
was  dropped.  Before  the  close  of  1633,  he  returned  to  Salem, 
assisting  the  Rev.  Mr.  Skelton,  but  "in  not  any  office."  In 
August,  1634,  after  the  death  of  Skelton,  he  was  called  to  be 
teacher  of  the  church.  In  November,  1634,  he  was  summoned 
before  the  court  for  having  broken  his  promise  "in  teaching 
publicly  against  the  King's  patent,"  but  at  the  March  session, 
proceedings  were  again  suspended,  on  the  ground  that  his 
action  sprang  from  "scruple  of  conscience"  rather  than  "sedi- 
tious principle."  When  the  court  met  again,  April  30,  a  new 
charge  was  brought  against  him  of  withstanding  the  freeman's 
oath.  Early  in  the  summer  of  1635,  the  Salem  church  pro- 
ceeded with  his  ordination,  which  led  to  his  being  cited  before 
the  court,  July  8,  on  the  ground  that  "  being  under  question 
for  divers  dangerous  opinions,"  he  had  been  called  in  "con- 
tempt of  authority,"  to  the  office  of  teacher.  A  petition  of  the 
Salem  men  with  reference  to  certain  lands  on  Marblehead 
Neck  was,  on  the  same  ground,  refused.  Availing  himself  of 
ecclesiastical  right,  Williams  caused  letters' of  admonition  to 
be  written  by  the  Salem  church  to  its  sister  churches,  com- 
plaining of  the  "  heinous  sin  "  committed  by  the  magistrates. 
When  a  majority  of  the  church  showed  a  disposition  to  recede 
from  its  position,  he  wrote  a  letter  renouncing  communion 
with  them.  At  the  September  session  of  the  court,  when  he 
had  been  cited  to  appear,  no  action  was  taken,  and  the  court 
adjourned  till  October  8.  At  this  time,  Williams,  when  asked 
whether  he  was  prepared  to  give  satisfaction,  "justified  both 
ihese  letters,  and  maintained  all  his  opinions."  In  conse- 
quence, sentence  was  passed  requiring  him  "to  depart  out  of 


138       THE   MONUMENT  OF  ROGER    WILLIAMS. 

this  jurisdiction  within  six  weeks."  According  to  Winthrop, 
this  was  done  "  the  next  morning,"  which  would  make  the  date 
of  the  sentence  October  9,  but  the  original  record  has  no  men- 
tion of  any  adjournment.  On  this  point  there  has  been  a  sin- 
gular confusion.  Soon  after,  Williams  was  seized  with  severe 
illness,  and  the  authorities  allowed  him  to  remain  till  spring, 
but  as  he  began  again  to  maintain  his  opinions  "  to  company 
in  his  house,"  it  was  decided  in  January,  1636,  to  send  him  to 
England,  when  he  fled  to  the  woods.  After  wandering  for 
fourteen  weeks,  in  the  spring  of  1636,  he  began  •'  to  build  and 
plant "  at  Seekonk,  but  in  June  changed  his  location  and  set- 
tled on  the  spot  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Providence. 
During  the  summer  he  interfered  to  prevent  the  Pequot  league. 
In  March,  1639,  he  was  re-baptized  by  "one  Holliman,  a  poor 
man,  late  of  Salem,"  and  united  with  Holliman  and  ten  others 
in  forming  what  was  afterwards  the  First  Baptist  Church  ;  but 
after  three  or  four  months  "he  broke  from  the  Society."  In 
the  summer  of  1643  ne  sailed  for  England,  devoting  the  leisure 
of  his  voyage  to  the  preparation  of  his  "  Key  into  the  Language 
of  America."  In  March,  1644,  he  obtained  the  charter  of  the 
"  Providence  Plantations."  In  the  same  year  he  published,  at 
London,  his  "  Key,"  and  in  the  year  following  the  "  Bloudy 
Tenent."  Bound  up  with  the  latter  was  the  ''Examination" 
of  Cotton's  Letter,  in  which  he  incidentally  presents  his  own 
view  of  the  grounds  of  his  banishment.  In  November,  1651, 
he  sailed  for  England  the  second  time,  and  published,  in  the 
following  year,  "  The  Bloudy  Tenent  yet  more  Bloudy,"  the 
"  Hireling  Ministry,"  and  the  "  Experiments  of  Spiritual  Life 
and  Health."  Early  in  the  summer  of  1654  he  returned  to 
Providence.  From  September,  1654,  till  May,  1657,  he  served 
as  President  of  the  Colony.  In  August,  1672,  occurred  his 
debate  at  Newport  with  the  Quakers,  a  full  account  of  which 
he  published  in  1676.  He  died  some  time  between  January 
18,  and  May  10,  1683.  According  to  custom,  he  was  buried 
on  his  own  grounds,  not  far  from  his  house  and  the  spot  where 
he  landed.  The  grave  was  distinctly  marked  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century. 


THE   SETTLEMENT   OF   MOUNT 

HOPE. 

AN   ADDRESS   AT  THE    TWO   HUNDREDTH  ANNIVER- 
SARY OF  THE  SETTLEMENT   OF  THE  TOWN 
OF  BRISTOL,  R.  I.,  DELIVERED 

SEPTEMBER  24,  18S0. 


We  have  met  to  commemorate  the  founding  of 
this  ancient  town.  Two  hundred  years  have  fled 
since  the  hearths  of  our  fathers  were  planted  here. 
Well  nigh  seven  generations  have  completed  their 
mortal  term  since  these  broad  streets  were  opened, 
since  this  spacious  common,  on  which  we  are  gath- 
ered, was  set  apart  for  public  use.  As  we  enter 
upon  the  third  century  of  our  history,  we  pause, 
for  a  brief  space,  to  confess  the  debt  which  every 
community  that  has  done  anything  worthy  of  re- 
membrance owes  to  itself,  and  which  no  community 
swayed  by  generous  sentiments,  and  mindful  of  its 
own  best  interests,  can  refuse  to  pay.  There  is  no 
more  becoming  impulse  than  that  which  brings  us 
hither.  The  most  elevated  instincts  of  our  nature 
are  enlisted  in  such  a  service.  The  deep  and  wide- 
spread interest  which  this  occasion  has  awakened, 
this  great  multitude  before  me,  afford  convincing 
proof  that  we  are  not  insensible  to  the  obligations 
which  our  connection  with  a  community  like  this 
imposes.     We  have  gladly  heeded  the  summons  to 


1 40         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

this  festival ;  we  have  trodden  with  willing  feet 
these  familiar  paths.  It  is  a  festival  in  which  we 
cannot  join  without  emotion.  It  has  for  all  of  us 
a  meaning  which  no  ordinary  festival  can  have. 
Amid  the  ringing  of  bells,  and  the  inspiring  strains 
of  music,  we  can  none  of  us  forget  that  we  have 
come  to  a  spot  hallowed  by  our  most  affecting  mem- 
ories. Here  we  were  born  ;  here  by  the  fireside  we 
heard  the  first  accents  of  affection  ;  here  in  the 
school-room  we  learned  our  earliest  lessons  ;  here 
in  the  house  of  God  we  were  taught  the  consoling 
truths  that  alone  compensate  for  the  losses  which 
a  day  like  this  brings  so  vividly  to  mind.  A  cloud 
of  witnesses,  invisible  to  mortal  eye,  looks  down 
upon  us.  Everything  around  us  invests  these  serv- 
ices with  an  exalted  and  religious  sentiment.  There 
are  no  ties  more  sacred  than  those  of  which  we  are 
now  reminded.  We  have  come  to  the  home  of  our 
childhood  ;  to  the  graves  of  our  fathers.  The  words 
of  Holy  Writ  leap  unbidden  to  our  lips  :  "  If  I  for- 
get Thee,  may  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning  ; 
if  I  do  not  remember  Thee,  may  my  tongue  cleave 
to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  !  " 

The  circumstances  under  which  we  meet  may  well 
call  for  our  heartfelt  gratuiation.  We  have  come  to 
a  spot  beautiful  for  situation,  lovely  indeed  at  all 
times,  but  never  more  lovely  than  at  this  season, 
when  lingering  summer  bathes  the  landscape  in  the 
pensive  beauty  that  so  well  befits  the  strain  of 
thought  in  which  we  cannot  help  indulging.  We 
have  come  at  a  time  when  we  may  turn  without 
effort  from  our  common  vocations  and  cares,  a  time 
of  great  prosperity,  when  our  land  is  teeming  with 
abundant  harvests,  when,  after  years  of  weary  de- 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         141 

pression,  commerce  and  industry  show  everywhere 
signs  of  healthy  revival,  when  our  public  credit  is 
restored,  when  peace  reigns  in  all  our  borders.  No 
dreg  of  bitterness  poisons  our  overflowing  cup.  Nor 
should  the  fact  that  we  are  now  engaged  in  one  of 
the  great  periodical  contests  which  determine  the 
political  character  of  our  government,  when  through- 
out its  length  and  breadth  the  land  is  stirred  with 
the  eager  strife  of  conflicting  parties,  lessen  in  the 
least  our  interest  in  these  services.  To  one  who 
rightly  apprehends  the  nature  of  our  political  sys- 
tem, and  who  correctly  estimates  the  real  sources 
of  its  strength,  they  will  seem  invested  with  addi- 
tional significance.  For  even  amid  the  excitement 
of  a  national  election,  and  with  the  inspiring  spec- 
tacle before  us  of  fifty  millions  of  freemen  choosing 
their  chief  magistrate  under  the  wise  and  regulated 
restraints  of  constitutional  law,  we  may  well  turn 
our  gaze,  for  a  few  moments,  to  those  ancient  sources 
from  which  the  broad  stream  of  our  national  life 
has  flowed;  we  may  well  remind  ourselves  that  our 
local  institutions  form,  at  once,  the  foundation  and 
safeguard  of  our  federal  system ;  that  from  the 
broad  support  of  numberless  scattered  municipali- 
ties like  this,  whose  founding  we  commemorate  to- 
day, springs  the  splendid  arch  that  gilds  with  prom- 
ise the  future  of  American  civilization.  Let  us 
never  forget  that  American  liberty  had  its  cradle  in 
towns ;  that  here  the  earliest  lessons  of  self-gov- 
ernment were  learned.  And  let  us  rest  assured 
that  so  long  as  the  traditions  of  these  local  rights 
are  zealously  cherished  American  liberty  will  never 
be  subverted. 

Nor  can  I  count  it  inopportune  that  our  services 


142         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

so  nearly  coincide,  in  point  of  time,  with  the  great 
and  splendid  commemoration,  which,  during  the  past 
week,  has  concentrated  the  gaze  of  the  entire  nation 
upon  the  chief  city  of  New  England.  At  first  sight, 
indeed,  it  may  well  seem  that  our  modest  festival 
cannot  fail  to  suffer  from  too  close  proximity  to  an- 
other so  similar  as  to  provoke  comparison,  and  yet 
so  much  more  impressive  in  its  historical  associa- 
tions, and  so  much  more  elaborate  in  its  attending 
circumstances.  Still  even  this  seeming  disadvan- 
tage, when  we  reflect  a  moment,  gives  additional 
meaning  to  our  celebration.  There  is  a  peculiar 
fitness  in  having  one  so  soon  succeed  the  other. 
For  it  serves  the  more  forcibly  to  call  attention  to 
that  feature  in  our  early  history  which  gave  this 
town  its  distinctive  Character,  and  drew  the  broad 
line  of  distinction  between  this  settlement  and  the 
earlier  settlements  upon  the  shores  of  the  Narra- 
gansett.  It  reminds  us  that  Bristol  was  the  off- 
spring of  Boston.  At  the  ripe  age  of  fifty  years  the 
sturdy  Puritan  mother  gave  birth  to  this  beautiful 
child.  It  was  the  sagacity  of  Boston  merchants 
that  first  saw  the  admirable  adaptation  of  this  com- 
modious harbor  to  the  purposes  of  commerce,  it  was 
the  public  spirit  of  Boston  merchants  that  reserved 
for  a  remote  posterity  the  ample  provisions  of  these 
streets  and  squares,  it  was  the  intelligence  and  piety 
of  Boston  merchants  that  planted  by  this  shore  the 
institutions  of  education  and  religion  which  their 
Puritan  training  had  taught  them  to  reverence,  and 
which  they  brought  with  them  to  their  new  home, 
as  their  most  precious  heritage.  Here,  so  far  as 
their  circumstances  would  permit,  they  sought  to 
build  another  Boston  ;  and  surely  as  they  gazed  on 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 43 

the  fair  surroundings  of  this  favored  spot,  as  they 
surveyed  the  gentle  slope  of  the  ground,  as  thev  fol- 
lowed the  graceful  course  of  the  silver  bay,  as  they 
pictured,  perchance,  the  possible  success  that  might 
attend  their  enterprise,  they  may  well  have  been 
pardoned  if  they  sometimes  exclaimed,  — 

"  O  matre  pulchra  filia  pulchrior  !  " 

Two  hundred  years  do  not  cover  a  long  period 
when  we  reckon  the  centuries  of  the  world's  history, 
yet  two  hundred  years  carry  us  back  to  a  time  when 
much  that  now  seems  majestic  and  venerable  ex- 
isted only  in  the  womb  of  futurity.  The  faded  ban- 
ner that  was  borne  in  our  procession  to-day,  pre- 
cious as  the  gift  of  one  of  the  first  proprietors,  is 
the  symbol  of  a  municipal  organization  that  went 
into  operation  more  than  a  century  before  our  Fed- 
eral Constitution  was  adopted.  When  this  town 
was  founded  the  kingdom  of  Prussia  had  not  been 
established,  the  empire  of  Russia  had  not  become 
a  European  power.  Charles  the  Second  was  still 
degrading  the  crown  of  England,  the  fierce  contest 
caused  by  the  Exclusion  Bill  was  raging,  the  great 
revolution  had  not  taken  place  which  drove  the  Stu- 
arts from  the  throne.  Our  town  government  is, 
therefore,  older  than  the  English  constitution  as  it 
now  exists,  older  than  the  Bill  of  Rights,  older  than 
the  Act  of  Settlement,  older  than  the  great  division 
of  parties  that  ran  through  the  reigns  of  Anne  and 
the  Georges,  older  than  the  England  of  Bolingbroke, 
of  Walpole,  and  of  Pitt.  Two  hundred  years  of  the 
quiet  annals  of  a  neighborhood  like  this  do  not,  it 
is  true,  appeal  to  the  imagination  like  two  hundred 
years  of  the  history  of  a  famous  state.     The  stage 


144         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

is  small,  and  the  interests  seem  trivial,  the  actors 
are  not  heroes  and  statesmen  and  kings.  But  it 
is,  after  all,  a  history  that  touches  us  more  nearly 
than  the  plots  of  rulers,  or  the  devastating  march 
of  armies.  It  is  the  history  of  the  human  life  which 
we  all  are  leading.  And  when  we  reflect  what  two 
hundred  years  of  the  history  of  a  community  like 
this  really  represent,  when  we  consider  the  inesti- 
mable benefit  diffused  by  a  well-ordered  social  sys- 
tem, the  wholesome  restraints  of  law,  the  sweets  of 
domestic  life,  the  elevating  influence  of  education, 
the  priceless  blessings  of  devout  religious  instruc- 
tion, the  influence  of  good  example  transmitted  from 
generation  to  generation,  we  shall  feel  that  two  hun- 
dred years  of  history  like  this  are  as  worthy  of  our 
study  as  much  that  fills  a  larger  and  more  preten- 
tious page. 

When  the  first  houses  were  built  upon  this  spot, 
two  of  which  still  remain  to  attest  the  solid  work- 
manship of  our  fathers,  there  already  existed  four 
settlements  on  Narragansett  Bay.  Forty-four  years 
earlier  Roger  Williams  had  undertaken,  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Mooshausic,  the  unique  and  memorable 
experiment  of  founding  a  community  .upon  the  prin- 
ciple of  obedience  to  the  civil  magistrates  only  in 
civil  things.  A  little  later  the  great  Antinomian 
controversy  had  driven  to  the  island  of  Aquidneck 
another  company,  who,  planting  themselves  just  at 
the  northern  end,  had  afterwards  removed  to  the 
unrivaled  harbor  which  excited  the  admiration  of 
the  Florentine  navigator,  Verazzano,  more  than  a 
century  before ;  and  almost  directly  opposite,  upon 
the  western  shore  of  the  bay,  that  singular  enthusi- 
ast, Samuel  Gorton,  after  coming  into  collision  with 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 45 

the  authorities  both  at  Providence  and  Newport, 
had  founded  Warwick.  In  the  year  1663  the  three 
settlements  had  been  united  under  the  charter  of 
Charles  the  Second. 

The  course  of  events  which  reserved  this  territory 
for  a  later  occupation,  and  for  a  different  jurisdiction, 
forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  the 
history  of  New  England.  The  neck  of  land  on  which 
this  town  was  built,  called  by  the  English  Mount 
Hope,  but  known  to  the  Indians  as  Pokanoket,  was 
the  last  recognized  possession  of  the  aborigines  in 
this  portion  of  the  country.  Here  was  their  final 
refuge;  here  began  the  great  struggle  which  resulted 
in  their  overthrow ;  here  was  witnessed  the  last 
tragic  act  in  the  bloody  strife.  I  shall  not  transgress 
the  proper  limits  of  my  subject  if  I  glance  briefly  at 
events  which  were  directly  connected  with  the  found- 
ing of  the  town,  and  which  explain  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  its  early  history.  It  is  only  from 
a  review  of  these  events  that  we  can  understand 
how  this  community  presented,  at  the  outset,  such 
marked  contrast  to  the  other  settlements  upon  our 
bay. 

Whether,  as  has  been  claimed  by  enthusiastic 
Scandinavian  scholars,  the  Northmen  ever  visited 
these  shores,  is  a  question  we  need  not  discuss. 
There  seems,  indeed,  no  reason  to  doubt  the  sub- 
stantial truth  of  the  narratives  which  describe  the 
adventurous  voyages  of  Biorn  and  Leif  and  Thor- 
finn  ;  we  may  accept  without  hesitation  the  claim 
that  they  discovered  Greenland,  that  they  cruised 
along  the  coast  of  Labrador  and  Nova  Scotia,  that 
they  pursued  their  dangerous  navigation  as  far  south 

as  Cape  Cod  and  Narragansett  Bay.     But  when  we 
10 


I46  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

seek  from  any  of  their  own  statements  to  determine 
the  precise  localities  they  visited  we  are  involved  in 
insuperable  difficulties.  The  attempt  from  a  pas- 
sage of  doubtful  meaning  respecting  the  length  of 
the  day  at  Vinland,  where  they  wintered,  to  identify 
its  latitude  with  Rhode  Island,  can  hardly  be  ac- 
cepted as  conclusive.  The  most  that  we  can  safely 
say,  is,  that  they  may  have  been  here  ;  that  there  is 
nothing  improbable  in  the  supposition  that  they  may 
have  found  in  this  bay  their  winter  refuge.  But  if 
they  did  they  left  no  trace  behind  them.  Their  dar- 
ing enterprise  had  no  influence  whatever  upon  sub- 
sequent events.  To  suppose,  as  some  have  done, 
that  the  name  of  the  neighboring  summit  is  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  Norse  word  with  which  they  marked 
their  resting-place,  and  that  it  was  preserved  in  the 
traditions  of  an  alien  race  for  more  than  six  hundred 
years,  is  to  carry  credulity  beyond  the  limit  of  com- 
mon sense.  We  may  please  ourselves  with  the  fancy 
that  the  dark  barks  which  arrested  the  troubled  gaze 
of  Charlemagne,  which  at  a  later  period  carried 
terror  to  the  coasts  of  France,  and  pushed  up  the 
Seine  to  the  very  gates  of  Paris,  may  have  anchored 
in  these  waters  ;  a  halo  of  romance  will  surround 
these  shores  if  we  connect  them  with  those  adven- 
turous vikings  ;  but  the  course  of  events  that  claims 
our  serious  attention  belongs  to  a  far  later  period. 
Let  us  leave  these  obscure  legends  and  pass  to  the 
region  of  unquestioned  fact.  We  shall  find  enough 
here  to  invest  this  familiar  region  with  a  singular 
and  enduring  interest. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  authentic  history  of  our 
town,  we  are  confronted  with  the  most  venerable 
figure  among  the  aborigines  of  New  England.   When 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 47 

the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth,  they  were  told  that 
the  desolate  region  around  them  belonged  to  the 
great  sachem,  Massasoit,  whose  sway  extended  from 
Cape  Cod  to  the  shores  of  the  Narragansett.  With 
him  their  first  treaty  was  concluded.  In  an  unfin- 
ished building  near  Plymouth,  the  floor  spread  with 
a  rug  and  cushion  to  give  dignity  to  the  proceedings, 
were  conducted  the  simple  negotiations  which  are 
memorable  as  the  beginning  of  American  diplomacy. 
The  treaty  was  one  of  alliance,  and  not  one  of  sub- 
jection, and  the  sachem  was  assured  that  "King 
James  would  esteem  him  as  his  friend  and  ally."  In 
the  following  summer,  the  first  passed  by  the  Pil- 
grims in  New  England,  envoys  were  sent  by  the 
colonists  to  visit  the  sachem  at  Pokanoket.  The 
narrative  of  this  visit,  the  earliest  ever  made  by  Eng- 
lishmen of  which  any  account  has  been  preserved, 
while  it  presents  a  vivid  picture  of  the  squalid  sur- 
roundings of  the  Wampanoag  chief,  furnishes  at  the 
same  time  abundant  evidence  of  his  hospitality  and 
kindness.  It  is  impossible  to  read  it  without  recog- 
nizing in  Massasoit  a  genuine  courtesy.  His  guests 
came  upon  him  unexpectedly,  and  "  he  was  both 
grieved  and  ashamed  that  he  could  no  better  enter- 
tain them."  In  this  visit  the  compact  already  con- 
cluded was  renewed,  and  the  relations  between  the 
two  races  thus  established  upon  a  permanent  basis. 
For  more  than  fifty  years  it  was  faithfully  observed. 
Long  as  Massasoit  lived  no  charge  was  made  that 
its  stipulations  were  either  broken  or  evaded.  He 
.  ived  to  see  his  territories  melt  away  before  the 
steady  inroad  of  the  whites,  till  at  length,  at  the  close 
of  his  long  reign,  he  found  himself  shut  up  to  the 
narrow  peninsula  of  Pokanoket.     But  he  remained 


[48         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

to  the  last  true  to  the  compact  he  had  made.  And 
when  we  remember  on  what  flimsy  pretexts  the  most 
Christian  kings  of  Europe,  Charles  II.,  and  Louis 
XIV.,  violated  their  most  sacred  engagements,  shall 
we  withhold  some  tribute  of  respect  to  this  pagan 
chief  ? 

With  the  death  of  the  kindly  and  faithful  Massa- 
soit,  we  pass  to  the  most  tragic  chapter  of  our  story. 
The  causes  of  the  bloody  struggle  which,  fifteen 
years  later,  plunged  New  England  into  mourning 
and  wrested  this,  their  last  refuge,  from  the  Wam- 
panoags,  still  remain  obscure.  From  his  first  acces- 
sion to  power,  Philip,  for  some  reason,  seems  to  have 
excited  the  suspicion  of  the  Plymouth  authorities.  He 
was  summoned  before  them,  and  though  he  earnestly 
protested  that  he  knew  of  no  plot  nor  conspiracy 
against  them,  he  was  compelled  to  sign  an  instru- 
ment by  which  he  acknowledged  himself  a  subject 
of  the  King  of  England.  When  more  positive 
charges  were  brought  against  him,  five  years  later, 
he  repeated  with  great  fervor  his  protestations  of 
innocency  and  of  faithfulness  to  the  English.  And 
when,  after  four  years  more  had  passed,  new  appre- 
hensions were  awakened,  he  desired  to  renew  his 
covenant  with  his  ancient  friends,  and  freely  engaged 
to  resign  to  the  government  of  New  Plymouth  all 
his  English  arms.  As  Philip  was  still  accused  of 
evading  this  agreement,  he  was  once  more  summoned 
before  the  authorities  and  compelled  to  acknowledge 
himself  not  only  subject  to  the  King  of  England, 
but  to  the  government  of  the  Plymouth  colony.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  conceive  how  this  increasing  pres- 
sure of  a  foreign  authority  must  have  affected  a 
haughty  spirit.     The  long-established  relation    be- 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 49 

tween  Massasoit  and  the  English  was  now  completely 
reversed.  Massasoit  had  been  treated  as  an  equal ; 
Philip  was  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  subject. 
Massasoit  had  been  regarded  with  confidence  ;  Philip, 
whether  justly  or  unjustly,  was  viewed  with  constant 
distrust.  That  the  sachem,  doubtless  ignorant  of 
the  full  force  of  the  submissions  he  had  made,  and 
only  conscious  that  a  net  was  being  skillfully  woven 
about  him,  was  wholly  free  from  blame,  no  one  would 
venture  to  affirm,  but  that  the  authorities  of  Plym- 
outh were  pushing  matters  with  too  hard  a  hand, 
was  the  manifest  opinion  of  their  Massachusetts 
brethren.  These  doubted  whether  the  engagement 
of  Philip  imported  more  than  "  a  friendly  and  neigh- 
borly correspondency." 

In  the  cabinet  of  the  Rhode  Island  Historical 
Society  there  is  preserved  a  curious  paper  which 
purports  to  give  the  substance  of  a  reply  made  by 
Philip  to  his  friend,  John  Borden,  of  Portsmouth, 
who  sought  to  dissuade  him  from  engaging  in  the 
war.  The  statement  was  not  committed  to  writing 
till  many  years  after  the  sachem's  death,  and  cannot 
claim  the  authority  of  a  historical  document.  Yet 
undoubtedly  it  preserves  the  tradition  respecting 
the  causes  of  the  war  that  lingered  in  Philip's  own 
neighborhood,  and  among  those  who  knew  him  best. 
While  the  language  belongs  to  a  later  period,  the 
general  representation  may  be  accepted  as  correct. 
In  this  reply  the  sachem  contrasts  the  reception 
which  his  father  had  extended  to  the  English  with 
the  ungenerous  treatment  to  which  he  had  been 
himself  subjected.  Unfounded  charges  had  been 
brought  against  him,  and  he  had  been  compelled  to 
part  with  his  territory  to  make  restitution   for  in- 


150         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

juries  that  he  could  not  prevent.  Thus  tract  after 
tract  was  gone  till  only  a  small  part  remained.  "  I 
am  determined,"  said  he,  "  not  to  live  till  I  have  no 
country." 

That  the  Indians,  in  the  main,  were  unfairly 
treated,  there  is,  indeed,  no  evidence.  Where  the 
Pilgrims  landed  the  territory  had  been  depopulated 
by  a  pestilence,  and  they  interfered  with  no  rights 
by  bringing  once  more  under  cultivation  a  desolate 
and  deserted  tract.  The  subsequent  acquisitions  of 
the  settlers  were  made  by  purchase,  to  which  the 
natives,  for  the  most  part,  gave  their  free  consent. 
And  in  their  transactions  the  authorities  took  special 
care  to  guard  the  Indians  from  imposition.  Yet  the 
policy  was  avowed  of  crowding  them  upon  narrow 
peninsulas,  and  they  saw  their  territory  continually 
wasting  away.  And  it  may  be  questioned  how  far 
the  chiefs  had  authority  to  alienate  the  lands  of 
their  tribe,  and  how  far  they  understood  the  full 
meaning  of  the  transfer  they  made.  Still  less  could 
they  comprehend  the  nature  of  the  allegiance  which 
they  were  compelled  to  swear  to  a  sovereign  who 
lived  three  thousand  miles  away.  Added  to  this 
were  the  unconcealed  suspicion  and  contempt  with 
which  they  were  regarded,  and  which  led  the  whites 
to  insist  strenuously  "  on  the  distance  which  is  to  be 
observed  betwixt  Christians  and  barbarians." 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  we  find  the  most 
favorable  representations  of  Philip's  character  in  the 
region  where  he  lived,  and  among  those  who  had  the 
best  opportunity  for  judging  him.  Thus  the  earliest 
historian  of  Rhode  Island,  Callender,  tells  us  that 
Philip  entered  reluctantly  upon  the  war,  and  that  he 
shed  tears  when  he  heard  that  the  first  blood  was 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         I  5  I 

spilled.  To  the  same  effect  is  the  tradition  of  his 
grateful  treatment  of  the  Leonards.  Though  his  or- 
dinary residence  was  at  Mount  Hope,  in  the  summer 
time  he  frequently  found  his  way  to  Taunton.  Here 
he  became  acquainted  with  this  family,  and  received 
many  acts  of  kindness  at  their  hands.  When  the 
war  broke  out  his  gratitude  saved  Taunton  from 
destruction.  "  You  have  made  him  ready  to  die," 
said  one  of  his  men  to  the  English  commander,  "  for 
you  have  killed  or  taken  all  his  relations."  It  has 
been  urged  against  him  as  a  reproach,  that,  when 
his  prospect  darkened  elsewhere,  he  did  not  join 
himself  to  the  Eastern  Indians  ;  but  is  it  not  a  touch- 
ing trait  in  his  character,  that  when  wife  and  child 
had  been  taken  from  him,  he  turned  back  to  die  in 
his  own  home  ? 

It  is  claimed  by  some  that  Philip  of  Pokanoket  is 
simply  a  hero  of  romance ;  that  fancy  has  arrayed 
with  fictitious  majesty  a  squalid  savage,  whose  dwell- 
ing was  a  sty.  No  doubt  many  of  the  representa- 
tions of  his  character  are  incorrect.  It  is  folly  to 
speak  of  him  as  a  great  warrior,  a  penetrating  states- 
man, a  mighty  prince.  Such  exaggerated  language 
does  him  gross  injustice,  for  it  applies  to  him  the 
standards  of  a  wholly  different  social  state.  There  is 
no  proof  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  great  con- 
spiracy, or  that  he  possessed  the  capacity  of  inflam- 
ing his  race  with  a  common  impulse.  But  we  are 
equally  wide  of  the  mark  when  we  picture  him,  in 
the  coarse  epithets  of  Church,  as  "  a  doleful,  great, 
naked,  dirty  beast."  In  spite  of  all  detraction,  he 
remains  the  most  picturesque  and  striking  figure  in 
Indian  history.  His  tragic  fate  lends  a  sad  interest 
10  yonder  mount.     We  are  standing  on  soil  that  was 


152  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

wrested  from  him  ;  we  are  enjoying  privileges  which 
were  purchased  by  his  ruin  ;  but  can  we  pass  a 
harsh  judgment  on  this  hero  of  a  lost  cause,  who 
fell,  in  an  unequal  fight,  by  a  traitor's  hand,  and 
whose  corpse  was  insulted  by  an  ungenerous  foe  ? 

By  the  overthrow  of  Philip,  the  Mount  Hope 
lands  were,  for  the  first  time,  thrown  open  to  the 
occupation  of  the  English,  but  the  question  was  yet 
to  be  determined  in  whom  the  title  to  the  newly- 
conquered  territory  was  vested.  The  manner  in 
which  this  question  was  settled  forms  the  most  curi- 
ous episode  in  our  early  history.  We  can  hardly 
fancy  a  more  striking  contrast  than  between  the 
wilds  of  Pokanoket  and  the  sumptuous  palace  of 
Whitehall,  between  the  stern,  resolute  men  who 
were  here  laying  the  foundations  of  a  new  English 
empire,  and  the  gay  and  dissolute  throng  who 
formed  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second.  Our  story 
carries  us  to  the  Privy  Council  chamber,  where  the 
dull  routine  of  business  was  at  this  time  so  often 
lighted  up  by  the  wit  of  Shaftesbury.  Among  those 
whose  occupation  it  was  to  amuse  the  King,  was  a 
dramatic  poet  named  John  Crowne.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  first  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Queen 
through  the  dislike  which  Rochester  cherished  for 
Dryden,  and  to  have  gained  the  favor  of  the  good- 
natured  monarch  by  a  mask  which  had  been  per- 
formed before  the  court.  Reckoning  on  his  favor, 
Crowne  came  forward  with  a  petition  for  the  Mount 
Hope  lands.  His  father,  who  had  purchased  an 
estate  in  Nova  Scotia,  had  been  impoverished  by  the 
cession  of  that  province  to  the  French,  and  upon 
this  circumstance  the  poet  based  his  claim  to  res- 
titution.    The  matter  was  brought  before  the  Privv 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         I  53 


Council,  who  directed  that,  before  any  action  should 
be  taken  inquiry  should  be  made  respecting  the  title 
to  the  territory.  Plymouth  claimed  the  lands  as  ly- 
ing within  her  patent,  and  in  this  view  the  agents  of 
Massachusetts  concurred.  The  two  Rhode  Island 
agents,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that  the  tract, 
up  to  the  recent  war,  had  belonged  to  the  Sachem 
Philip,  and  that  no  corporation  in  New  England  had 
any  title  to  it.  Although  the  Plymouth  authorities  had 
sought  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  King  by  sending  to 
him  the  greater  part  of  the  ornaments  and  treasures 
of  Philip,  the  Privy  Council  adopted  the  Rhode  Island 
view.  But,  at  the  same  time,  they  recommended  that 
the  lands  be  granted  to  Plymouth,  reserving  only  to 
the  Crown,  by  way  of  quit  rent,  seven  beaver  skins  to 
be  paid  yearly  at  Windsor  Castle.  No  other  lands 
in  the  colony  were  held  upon  this  tenure. 

The  title  to  the  newly-conquered  lands  having 
been  thus  confirmed  to  Plymouth,  measures  were  at 
once  taken  to  dispose  of  them.  The  most  powerful 
reason  which  had  led  the  Plymouth  authorities  to 
claim  the  territory  was  that  it  "  was  well-accommo- 
dated for  the  settlement  of  sea-port  towns."  The 
evident  advantages  which  it  possessed  as  a  commer- 
cial mart  could  not  long  remain  unnoticed.  On  the 
fourteenth  of  September,  1680,  corresponding,  if  we 
allow  for  the  difference  of  style,  to  the  day  selected 
for  these  services,  and  in  consideration  of  the  sum 
of  three  hundred  pounds,  the  Mount  Hope  lands 
were  conveyed  to  four  citizens  of  Boston  :  John 
Walley,  Nathaniel  Byfield,  Stephen  Burton,  and  Na- 
thaniel Oliver.  By  the  terms  of  the  sale,  a  "  town 
[or  trade  "  was  to  be  at  once  established.  To  pro- 
mote this  end  extraordinary  privileges  were  granted, 


154         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

and  most  liberal  provisions  were  made.  The  four 
proprietors  reserved  to  themselves  an  eighth  each, 
and  proceeded  to  dispose  of  the  remainder.  The 
new  settlement  was  exempted  from  all  colonial  taxes 
for  five  years,  the  privilege  of  sending  deputies  to 
the  General  Court  was  conceded  to  it,  a  local  court 
was  established,  and  it  was  provided  that  it  should 
be  the  shire-town  of  a  new  county  to  be  established. 
The  tract  was  laid  out  on  a  plan  of  which  up  to  this 
time  there  had  been  no  example.  In  contrast  with 
the  crowded  streets  of  Boston  it  presented  these 
broad  and  regular  avenues,  but  like  Boston  it  had  a 
public  common  reserved  in  the  centre  of  the  town, 
while  six  hundred  acres,  in  addition,  were  devoted 
to  the  general  improvement.  It  is  impossible  to 
glance  at  these  provisions  without  recognizing  the 
fact  that  the  first  proprietors  of  this  territory  were 
men  of  liberal  views  and  large  public  spirit.  While 
engaged  in  an  enterprise  which  their  own  private 
advantage  had  no  doubt  suggested,  they  scorned  to 
look  at  it  in  the  light  of  mere  private  and  selfish  in- 
terest. The  generous  conception  which  they  formed 
of  their  undertaking  received  its  reward.  The  best 
class  of  settlers  was  attracted,  and  in  five  years, 
where  had  been  a  wilderness,  there  stood  the  most 
flourishing  town  in  the  colony. 

The  great  purpose  which  they  had  in  view  was 
intimated  in  almost  their  earliest  corporate  act.  On 
September  i,  1681,  the  people  assembled  together 
and  agreed  that  "  the  name  of  this  town  shall  be 
Bristol."  The  only  reason  that  can  be  assigned 
for  such  a  proceeding  is  that  at  this  time  Bristol 
was,  next  to  London,  the  most  important  seat  of 
maritime  commerce  in  the  mother  country,  and  in 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OE  MOUNT  HOPE.         I  55 

founding  their  new  port  of  trade,  the  settlers  of  this 
town  wished  to  borrow  some  of  the  associations  of 
such  a  famous  mart.  We  may  derive  a  natural  sat- 
isfaction from  the  reflection,  that  their  confidence  in 
the  experiment  they  had  undertaken  gave  us  even 
this  trifling  connection  with  a  city  which,  though 
stripped  in  part  of  its  commercial  eminence,  is  still 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  England,  the  city  from 
which  Sebastian  Cabot  sailed  on  the  voyage  that 
resulted  in  the  discovery  of  the  American  conti- 
nent, the  city  which  Edmund  Burke  represented  in 
Parliament,  when  he  vindicated,  in  strains  of  unsur- 
passed eloquence,  the  rights  of  the  colonies.  In 
several  striking  particulars  a  resemblance  between 
the  towns  might  be  traced.  The  distinctive  char- 
acter of  the  new  enterprise,  that  which  marked  it  so 
strongly  from  the  earlier  settlements  upon  the  bay, 
is  expressed  in  this  proceeding.  The  founders  of 
Bristol  were  not,  like  the  settlers  of  Providence  and 
Newport,  exiles  for  conscience'  sake,  smarting  with 
sense  of  wrong,  and  cherishing  a  bitter  feeling  of 
resentment  against  the  community  from  which  they 
had  been  driven  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  men 
of  wealth  and  standing,  of  high  consideration  in  the 
colony  which  they  voluntarily  left,  for  which  they 
cherished  the  most  affectionate  attachment,  and 
whose  institutions  they  zealously  labored  to  perpet- 
uate. In  coming  here  they  were  not  seeking  for 
any  larger  religious  liberty,  for  that  they  already  en- 
joyed in  as  great  a  measure  as  they  deemed  consis- 
tent with  their  own  good  ;  they  were  not  aiming  to 
emancipate  themselves  from  any  restraints  of  law. 
They  came  here,  under  due  authority,  to  establish  a 
town  for  trade,  and  they  sought,  from  the  outset,  to 


[56         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

surround  themselves  with  all  the  sanctions  of  social 
order. 

Every  community  is  stamped  with  the  impress 
of  its  founders.  Who,  we  naturally  ask,  were  the 
men  to  whom  Bristol  owes  its  origin  ?  The  four 
original  proprietors,  with  one  exception,  were  act- 
ual settlers,  and  became  earnestly  identified  with 
the  interests  of  the  town.  Mr.  Oliver  sold  his 
share  to  Nathan  Hayman,  another  leading  merchant 
of  Boston,  who  soon  after  died.  The  names  of  the 
remaining  three  are  written  in  enduring  characters 
on  our  early  annals.  Of  Stephen  Burton  less  is 
known  than  of  the  others,  but  he  is  said  to  have 
been  bred  at  Oxford,  and  as  recording  officer  of  the 
county  he  filled  a  responsible  position  until  his 
death  in  1692.  John  Walley,  whose  name  stands 
first  on  the  Grand  Deed,  was  the  son  of  an  Eng- 
lish clergyman,  and  held  high  rank  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Colony.  While  devoting  himself  with  suc- 
cess to  mercantile  pursuits,  he  was  called  at  vari- 
ous times  to  discharge  important  public  duties.  He 
was.  a  member  of  the  Council,  a  Judge  of  the  Su- 
perior Court,  and  had  command  of  the  land  forces 
in  the  expedition  of  Sir  William  Phipps.  These 
great  trusts  were  executed  with  an  ability  and  fidel- 
ity which  gained  him  universal  respect.  During  his 
residence  in  Bristol  he  stood  always  among  the 
foremost  in  promoting  every  public  interest.  His 
substantial  dwelling  still  remains  among  us.  Near 
the  close  of  his  life  he  returned  to  Boston,  where  he 
died  in  171 2.  But  the  most  prominent  and  influen- 
tial of  the  original  proprietors  yet  remains  to  be 
mentioned.  Nathaniel  Byfield  was  also  the  son  of 
an    English    clergyman,   a  member   of    the  famous 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         I  57 

Westminster  Assembly.  His  mother  was  sister  of 
the  upright  and  courageous  Bishop  Juxon,  who  at- 
tended Charles  I.  upon  the  scaffold.  He  landed  at 
Boston  only  six  years  before  the  purchase  of  the 
Mount  Hope  lands.  Coming  to  this  town  with  the 
first  settlers,  he  remained  here  for  nearly  half  a 
century,  choosing  for  his  home  the  beautiful  pen- 
insula on  the  opposite  side  of  the  harbor,  the  greater 
part  of  which  belonged  to  his  estate.  Like  Walley 
he  returned  to  Boston  in  his  old  age,  and  died  there 
in  1733.  His  remains  rest  in  the  old  Granary  Bur- 
ial Ground.  When  Bristol  was  incorporated  it  was 
a  part  of  Plymouth  Colony,  but  after  the  union  of 
Plymouth  with  Massachusetts,  in  1690,  an  ampler 
field  was  opened  to  its  citizens.  Colonel  Byfield 
was  several  times  elected  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  ;  for  many  years  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Provincial  Council ;  for  a  long  period  he  pre- 
sided in  the  County  Court ;  from  no  less  than  three 
English  sovereigns  he  received  a  commission  as 
Judge  in  Admiralty.  In  the  notice  called  forth  by 
his  death,  he  is  described  as  a  man  of  great  courage, 
vigor,  and  activity  ;  of  plain  and  instructive  con- 
versation, and  of  unquestionable  faithfulness  and 
honesty.  Nothing  is  more  to  his  credit  than  the 
fact  that  during  the  Witchcraft  delusion,  which  re- 
mains such  a  dark  spot  upon  the  fame  of  Massa- 
chusetts, he  had  the  courage  to  oppose  and  de- 
nounce it.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  convictions  ; 
he  was  engaged  in  bitter  controversies  ;  and  he  did 
not  escape  the  aspersions  which  were  as  freely  lav- 
ished in  that  day  as  in  ours.  But  when  his  long 
and  useful  life  was  ended,  his  character  and  public 
services  called  forth  unqualified  eulogium.     In  this 


158  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

community  his  memory  has  always  been  gratefully 
cherished.  To  no  one  has  Bristol  been  so  much  in- 
debted. To  him,  more  than  to  any  other,  we  owe 
these  broad  and  beautiful  streets ;  to  him  we  are 
indebted  for  this  common  on  which  we  stand  ;  to 
his  foresight  and  generosity  was  due  the  early  pro- 
vision for  schools,  which  has  been  such  a  material 
aid  in  the  cause  of  public  education.  Fitted  by  his 
eminent  abilities  for  the  highest  positions  in  the 
colony,  he  was  never  unmindful  of  his  obligations 
to  the  community  in  which  he  lived.  And  with 
great  appropriateness,  when  the  High  School  was 
erected,  a  few  years  ago,  the  town  decided  that  it 
should  bear  the  name  of  Byfield.  No  nobler  memo- 
rial can  be  erected  to  the  dead  than  a  memorial 
like  this  which  is  a  perpetual  blessing  to  the  living, 
and  no  more  worthy  example  can  be  held  up  to  the 
generations  of  children  who  shall  receive  their  train- 
ing there,  than  the  example  of  one  who  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  private  interests  never  neglected  the 
public  good.  Well  may  we  be  proud  to  enroll  such 
names  as  Walley  and  Byfield  among  our  founders  ! 
I  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  set- 
tlement of  Bristol  was  essentially  a  commercial  en- 
terprise. At  first  sight,  no  doubt,  this  feature  in 
its  history  seems  to  detract  from  the  significance  of 
the  undertaking.  Especially  in  comparison  with  the 
neighboring  towns,  it  seems  to  lack  those  charac- 
teristics which  awaken  the  most  enthusiastic  inter- 
est. We  cannot  claim  that  on  this  soil,  so  dear  to 
all  of  us,  any  novel  truth  was  evolved,  or  any  great 
principles  were  defended.  The  fame  which  justly 
belongs  to  Providence  and  to  Aquidneck,  does 
not  belong  to  us.     Our  early  records  do  not  bear 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 59 

the  names  of  any  martyrs  for  conscience,  of  any 
pioneers  in  the  vindication  of  spiritual  truth.  We 
have  no  Roger  Williams  upon  whose  statue  we  can 
gaze  with  reverence,  we  have  no  Anne  Hutchinson, 
whose  clear  perception  of  first  principles  may  extort 
our  admiration,  and  whose  pathetic  fate,  after  so 
many  years  have  passed,  must  excite  our  warmest 
sympathy.  We  are  forced  to  confess  the  absence 
in  our  local  annals  of  those  elements  which  lend  to 
history  its  highest  and  most  absorbing  charm.  But 
there  is  another  side  to  all  this  which  we  must  not 
overlook.  In  the  complex  system  under  which  the 
human  race  is  working  out  its  destiny,  it  seems  to 
be  the  rule  that  an  advantage  in  one  direction  is 
always  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  some  corre- 
sponding advantage  in  another.  There  are  two 
great  principles  that  control  the  movements  of  soci- 
ety, the  principle  of  progress,  and  the  principle  of 
order.  If  we  reckon  it  a  blessing  to  enjoy  an  un- 
checked liberty,  if  we  count  it  a  privilege  to  dwell 
in  a  community  where  there  is  no  restraint  upon 
the  expression  of  opinion,  where  every  one  is  free 
to  follow  his  own  course,  and  to  attain  the  largest 
measure  of  individual  development  and  individual 
action,  we  must  on  the  other  hand  admit  that  there 
is  some  advantage  in  an  orderly  society,  some  ben- 
efit to  be  derived  from  connection  with  a  community 
where  the  common  interests  are  not  disregarded, 
where  mutual  obligations  receive  full  recognition, 
and  where  the  claims  of  positive  truth  are  not  for- 
gotten in  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of  private  judg- 
ment. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  contemplate  with  admira- 
tion the  early  history  of  the  State  of  which,  for  near 


160         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

a  century  and  a  half,  we  have  been  a  loyal  part ; 
not  to  gaze  with  reverence  at  the  little  community 
which,  in  an  adverse  age,  had  it  in  its  heart  "  to 
hold  forth  a  lively  experiment  that  a  most  flourish- 
ing civil  State  may  stand  and  best  be  maintained 
with  a  full  liberty  of  religious  concernments  ;  "  and 
which  in  an  age  when  toleration  was  hardly  known, 
boldly  affirmed  that  not  toleration  merely,  but  com- 
plete religious  freedom,  was  the  right  of  every  hu- 
man being  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  history 
of  Rhode  Island  and  not  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
those  who  drank  of  this  great  cup  of  liberty  were 
compelled  to  pay  a  heavy  price.  When  they  threw 
their  doors  wide  open  to  the  distressed  in  conscience 
of  every  name,  when  they  held  out  so  boldly  the 
alluring  bait  of  exemption  from  all  external  re- 
straints, they  drew  together  elements  so  incongru- 
ous, so  inharmonious,  so  discordant,  that  even  the 
invincible  patience  of  Roger  Williams  at  length  re- 
coiled from  "  such  an  infinite  liberty  of  conscience." 
The  extremely  democratic  basis  upon  which  the 
body  politic  was  rested,  while  it  reduced  the  func- 
tions of  government  to  the  very  narrowest  limits,  at 
the  same  time  left  the  control  of  affairs  in  the  hands 
of  the  least  intelligent  portion  of  the  population. 
While  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  first  settlers  were 
insensible  to  the  importance  of  education,  still  edu- 
cation never  received  any  generous  public  support. 
The  complete  separation  effected  between  church 
and  state,  by  remitting  the  support  of  religious  in- 
stitutions to  a  community  divided,  beyond  all  previ- 
ous example,  in  religious  sentiment,  deprived  them 
of  the  inestimable  benefit  of  an  educated  clergy.  In 
the  town  which  Williams  founded,  and  to  which  he 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         l6l 

gave  a  name  expressive  of  his  reliance  upon  divine 
help,  no  place  of  public  worship  existed  until  the 
beginning  of  the  following  century.  Freedom  of 
every  kind  prevailed  in  unexampled  measure,  but 
an  enlarged  public  spirit,  an  intelligent  appreciation 
of  the  higher  interests  of  the  social  body,  a  recog- 
nition of  what  was  due  from  the  individual  to  the 
community  of  which  he  formed  a  part,  were  not 
then  traits  of  Rhode  Island  character. 

The  Puritan  colonies  of  Plymouth  and  Massachu- 
setts, but  more  especially  the  latter,  stood  in  strik- 
ing contrast  with  all  this.  Firmly  knit  in  religious 
faith,  making  no  pretense  whatever  of  toleration, 
often  harsh  in  their  treatment  of  dissenters,  they 
were  eminent  for  public  spirit,  and  showed  the  char- 
acteristics of  homogeneous  and  highly  organized 
communities.  Led  by  their  peculiar  theory  to  in- 
vest the  State  with  the  largest  powers,  and  ally  it 
with  all  the  supreme  concerns  of  life,  they  regarded 
no  political  duties  as  more  sacred  and  more  imper- 
ative than  those  connected  with  the  promotion  of 
education  and  the  maintenance  of  pure  religion. 
The  public  support  accorded  to  religious  institutions 
secured  for  every  town  the  services  of  a  well  edu- 
cated minister.  On  the  other  hand,  this  close  alli- 
ance of  church  and  state  gave  additional  import  to 
civil  obligations.  Public  functions  were  held  in  high 
esteem,  magistrates  were  regarded  with  reverence, 
and  even  the  ordinary  duties  of  the  citizen  were  dis- 
charged in  a  religious  spirit.  Equally  in  civil  and 
religious  things  the  Puritan  viewed  himself  as  living 
unto  God. 

Coming,  as  they  did,  from  a  Puritan  colony,  the 
founders  of  Bristol  did  not  seek  in  their  new  home 
ii 


1 62         THE  SETTLEMENT  OE  MOUNT  HOPE. 

to   throw   off   the   Puritan  traditions   in  which  they 
had  been  trained.     They   walked  with  undeviating 
steps  in  the  faith    to  which  they  had   been   accus- 
tomed.    They  came  to   establish  a  town  for  trade, 
but  they  did  not  for  a  moment  forget  the  higher  con- 
ditions on  which   the  welfare  of  every  community 
depends,  and  without  which  material  prosperity  can 
only  prove,  in  the  end,  a  curse.     Though   engaged 
in  a  commercial    enterprise,    all   their    proceedings 
evinced  a  noble  and  conscientious  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  society  is  bound  by  obligations  which  tran- 
scend all  private  and  selfish  interests.      I  have  al- 
ready alluded  to  the  liberal  provision,  made  at  the 
settlement  of  the  town,  for  the  promotion  of  educa- 
tion.    Almost  their  first  care  was  to  secure  the  serv- 
ices of  "  an  able  schoolmaster."     And  by  a  subse- 
quent vote,  by  which  a  small  additional  fee  was  ex- 
acted from  children  who   studied  Latin,  it  appears 
that  the  course  of   study  was  not  confined  to  com- 
mon branches,  but  embraced  the  classics.     But  still 
more  characteristic  was   their  concern  for  the   sup- 
port  of    religion.      When    the    town    was    laid    out 
lands  were  set  apart  for  the  support  of  the  ministry, 
and   in   the  articles  of  agreement  between  the  orig- 
inal proprietors    and  the  settlers  it  was  expressly 
stipulated  that   each  should  pay  his   proportion   for 
erecting  a  meeting-house,  and  a  home  for  the  min- 
ister.    At  the  very  first  town  meeting,  before  their 
own  dwellings  had  been  closed  against  the  winter 
wind,  they  voted  to    carry  the    latter    part  of  this 
agreement  into  effect.     For  a  short  time  they  wor- 
shipped in  a  private  house,  a  house  whose  sturdy 
frame,  solid  and  unyielding  as  the  creed  of  its  build- 
ers, still   defies  decay.     As   soon  as  arrangements 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 63 

could  be  completed,  they  proceeded  to  erect  a  meet- 
ing-house. The  massive  timbers  were  cut  from  the 
common  about  us.  It  stood  on  the  site  of  yonder 
Court  House,  and  in  it,  for  a  hundred  years,  our 
fathers  assembled  to  worship  God.  Around  it  were 
the  graves  of  the  first  settlers,  the  most  hallowed 
associations  gathered  about  it,  and  we  can  but  mar- 
vel at  the  stupidity  which  sacrificed  that  sacred  and 
commanding  site.  According  to  well  authenticated 
tradition,  the  building  was  square  in  shape,  having 
two  rows  of  windows,  with  a  roof  rising  to  the  cen- 
tre, and  surmounted  by  a  cupola  and  bell.  The  in- 
terior was  surrounded  by  a  double  row  of  galleries, 
and  the  floor  was  covered,  as  time  went  on,  with 
square  pews,  through  the  rounds  of  whose  oaken 
doors  the  children  sought  relief  from  the  tedium  of 
the  protracted  services.  I  know  it  is  the  habit  of 
some  to  express  contempt  for  the  old-fashioned 
New  England  meeting-house.  But  if  the  principle 
laid  down  by  the  highest  authorities  on  architecture 
is  right,  that  all  genuine  and  noble  building  has  its 
origin  in  actual  needs,  and  finds  the  measure  of  its 
excellence  in  its  adaptation  to  the  use  intended  ;  if 
the  Grecian  temple,  the  Gothic  minster,  the  feudal 
castle,  derive  their  charm  from  their  conformity  to 
this  fundamental  law,  then  our  Puritan  fathers  built 
wisely  and  well.  They  built  according  to  their 
means,  and  with  reference  to  their  wants.  Their 
plain  meeting-houses  harmonized  with  their  simple 
worship.  To  the  eye  of  taste  they  are  far  more  ven- 
erable and  far  more  interesting  than  the  more  am- 
bitious structures  with  which  they  have  so  often 
been  supplanted. 

The  men  who  made  such  liberal  provision  for  the 


164         THE   SETTLE  ME  XT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

support  of  public  worship  were  not  likely  to  be  in- 
different to  the  ministrations  under  which  they  sat. 
Exalting  the  pulpit  to  such  supreme  rank,  they 
cherished  a  not  less  exalted  ideal  of  religious  teach- 
ing. Accustomed  to  accord  the  minister  the  first 
place  in  the  community,  they  exacted,  in  return,  the 
highest  qualification.  After  one  unsuccessful  exper- 
iment they  secured  for  their  first  settled  pastor  a 
renowned  scholar,  who  brought  to  the  infant  settle- 
ment the  ripest  discipline  of  the  Old  World.  Son  of 
a  wealthy  London  citizen,  he  received  his  early  train- 
ing at  the  famous  St.  Paul's  school,  which  John 
Colet,  the  friend  of  Erasmus,  founded ;  the  school  in 
which  Milton  acquired  the  rudiments  of  his  match- 
less scholarship.  Proceeding  at  the  early  age  of 
fifteen  to  Oxford,  he  won  a  distinguished  rank,  and 
was  rewarded  with  a  fellowship  at  Wadham  College. 
A  conscientious  Non-conformist,  he  came  to  this 
country  in  1686.  It  was  said  of  him  by  one  well 
qualified  to  judge,  "that  hardly  ever  a  more  univer- 
sally learned  person  trod  the  American  strand."  It 
is  true  that  he  remained  here  but  a  short  time,  but 
we  may  safely  infer  something  respecting  the  char- 
acter and  intelligence  of  a  community  which,  even 
for  a  short  time,  could  command  and  appreciate  the 
ministrations  of  such  a  man  as  Samuel  Lee. 

Here  let  us  pause.  I  have  narrated  the  circum- 
stances that  led  to  the  founding  of  this  town,  I  have 
sketched  an  outline  of  its  distinguishing  features.  I 
repeat  that  no  such  halo  surrounds  our  early  history 
as  that  which  illumines  the  beginnings  of  the  neigh- 
boring settlements.  We  have  no  claim  to  the  dis- 
tinction which  Providence  and  Newport  boast.  But 
we  may  justly  claim  praise  of  a  different  kind.     We 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         1 65 

may  claim  that  here  was  planted  a  town  which  illus- 
trated the  advantages  of  social  order ;  which  was 
enriched,  beyond  ordinary  measure,  with  the  best 
conditions  of  social  progress  ;  which  entered  on  its 
career  with  high  and  generous  appreciation  of  social 
obligations.  It  had  no  rude  beginnings.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  few  rural  neighborhoods  in  the 
mother  country  could  boast  the  educational  and  re- 
ligious privileges  which  they  enjoyed  who  followed 
the  wise  lead  of  Walley  and  Byfield  to  these  untrod- 
den wilds. 

Two  hundred  years  have  passed  since  the  work 
which  I  have  described  was  done.  The  dream  in 
which  our  fathers  indulged,  when  they  borrowed  for 
their  little  settlement  the  name  of  the  famous  Eng- 
lish mart,  has  not  been  realized  ;  in  the  main  object 
they  had  in  view  the  course  of  events  has  not  cor- 
responded with  their  expectations.  The  transfer  of 
the  town  from  Massachusetts  to  Rhode  Island,  which 
took  place  two  generations  later,  lessened  its  impor- 
tance ;  the  hard  struggle  with  the  mother  country 
bore  heavily  upon  it ;  and  not  even  the  extraordinary 
enterprise  of  its  merchants,  during  the  half  century 
that  followed,  could  withstand  the  inevitable  tend- 
ency of  trade  which  collected  foreign  commerce  into 
a  few  great  centres.  Bristol  shared  the  fate  of  so 
many  famous  New  England  seaports.  The  harbor 
is  deserted  which  was  once  crowded  with  vessels 
from  every  clime  ;  the  wharves  are  rotting  where, 
within  my  own  memory,  were  piled  the  costly  prod- 
ucts of  the  tropics,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  Bal- 
tic. The  jargon  of  strange  races  is  heard  no  more 
in  our  streets  ;  the  bustling  port  is  transformed  into 
a  summer  watering-place.     Yet  I  cannot  doubt  that 


1 66         THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE. 

the  best  work  of  the  founders  remains.  The  mark 
they  made  on  the  character  of  the  town,  the  impulse 
they  gave  to  its  higher  interests,  the  deep  lines  they 
cut  upon  its  moral  foundations,  —  these  have  not 
passed  away.  There  is  not  one  of  us  here,  to-day, 
who  is  not  better  for  the  work  they  did.  We  trace 
their  beneficent  influence  in  the  conservative  char- 
acter which  has  always,  been  the  just  boast  of  this 
community,  in  the  regard  for  social  order  which  has 
made  it  always  prompt  and  unswerving  in  its  sup- 
port of  authority  and  law.  We  trace  it  in  the  gen- 
erous support  of  public  institutions,  of  which  there 
are  so  many  striking  proofs  around  us  ;  in  the 
churches,  where,  under  different  forms,  the  God 
whom  they  worshipped  is  adored  ;  in  the  noble 
school,  which,  bearing  the  name  of  Byfield,  shows 
that  his  spirit  is  not  extinct ;  and  in  the  most  recent 
ornament  of  our  town,  the  beautiful  Library,  the  gift 
of  one  who  still  survives,  as  an  embodiment  of  the 
gentler  and  more  winning  virtues  of  the  olden  time, 
virtues  which  find  small  place  on  the  page  of  history, 
but  which  form  so  large  a  part  of  all  that  gives  value 
and  happiness  and  blessing  to  human  life. 

Much  that  the  fathers  believed  we  question ;  much 
that  they  deemed  essential  we  have  put  aside.  But 
let  us  rest  assured  that  it  remains  as  true  in  our  day 
as  in  theirs,  that  religion  and  intelligence  are  the 
foundations  of  a  well-ordered  and  prosperous  com- 
munity. The  example  they  have  given  us  is  an  ex- 
ample which  we  cannot  afford  to  forget.  It  is  the 
example  of  an  enlightened  public  spirit,  the  lesson 
that  we  are  members  one  of  another,  that  our  indi- 
vidual concerns  are  wrapped  up  in  the  general  wel- 
fare, that  we  best  promote  our  private  interests  when 


THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  MOUNT  HOPE.         167 

we  seek  the  common  good.  This,  as  I  read  New 
England  history,  was  the  great  and  admirable  feature 
in  the  character  of  the  Puritans  ;  this  it  was  that 
made  them  strong,  and  prosperous,  and  honored. 
Let  this  be  the  lesson  which  we  carry  from  these 
services,  that  in  a  community  like  this  every  mem- 
ber must  do  his  part ;  that  no  matter  how  small  its 
size,  no  matter  how  local  and  limited  the  interests 
involved,  we  have  no  right  to  hold  ourselves  aloof 
from  its  concerns.  The  possession  of  large  means, 
of  superior  culture,  only  adds  to  the  obligation. 
This,  I  repeat,  is  the  great  lesson  the  fathers  teach. 
May  we  so  ponder  it  that  when  another  two  centu- 
ries have  passed,  when  seven  generations  more  have 
been  laid  in  their  silent  graves,  we  ourselves  may  be 
as  gratefully  remembered  as  we  to-day  have  remem- 
bered them  ! 


SIR   HENRY   VANE. 

AN  HISTORICAL  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 

LONG  ISLAND  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  BROOKLYN, 

MARCH  26,  1878. 


No  more  appropriate  service  can  be  rendered  by 
a  society  like  that  which  I  have  the  honor  to  ad- 
dress, than  in  helping  to  correct  the  erroneous  esti- 
mates for  which  ignorance  and  prejudice  have  gained 
acceptance.  An  historical  society  discharges  its 
highest  function  not  merely  in  collecting  and  pre- 
serving the  memorials  of  the  past,  but  in  contrib- 
uting to  that  progressive  and  impartial  judgment 
which,  Schiller  tells  us,  makes  the  essential  move- 
ment of  the  world's  history.  I  shall  speak  to  you 
of  one  whose  position  and  character  were  alike 
unique ;  of  one  whose  fame  belongs  both  to  the  Old 
and  to  the  New  World  ;  the  most  brilliant  and  pa- 
thetic episodes  of  whose  career  are  a  part  of  Eng- 
lish history,  but  whose  most  permanent  influence 
must  be  traced  in  the  institutions  of  our  own  coun- 
try ;  of  one,  who,  while  strenuously  identified  with 
the  conflicts  of  his  time,  was  yet  by  temper  and 
opinion  held  aloof  from  the  parties  by  which  those 
conflicts  were  carried  on  ;  who  was  most  misunder- 
stood by  those  with  whom  he  most  sincerely  acted, 


SIR  HENRY   VANE.  1 69 

and  who  has  been  most  harshly  judged  by  some  pro- 
fessing the  warmest  sympathy  with  the  cause  for 
which  he  suffered.  In  a  stormy  age,  his  soul  "  was 
like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart."  It  was  his  signal  and 
extraordinary  fate  to  become  involved  in  the  bitter 
controversies  of  two  hemispheres  ;  to  be  brought 
into  conflict  both  with  Puritan  and  with  Churchman  ; 
to  be  imprisoned  by  Cromwell,  and  to  be  put  to 
death  by  Charles  the  Second  ;  and  not  released  by 
the  grave  even  from  this  strange,  unquiet  destiny, 
to  be  ridiculed  alike  by  the  believing  Baxter  and  by 
the  skeptical  Hume.  Such  an  exceptional  fate  can- 
not fail,  at  least,  to  provoke  curiosity  ;  and  we  may 
spend  an  hour,  perhaps,  not  unprofitably,  in  seeking 
for  a  fair  estimate  of  one  who,  if  not  without  faults, 
was  a  conspicuous  representative  of  what  was  best  in 
the  most  ideal  and  heroic  epoch  of  English  history, 
but  whose  career  can  perhaps  be  most  fairly  judged 
in  the  land  where  his  distinctive  principles  have 
borne  their  noblest  fruit. 

On  the  6th  of  October,  1635,  two  great  ships, 
the  Defence,  and  the  Abigail,  arrived  in  Boston 
harbor,  bringing  several  passengers  of  note,  and 
among  them  one  whose  coming  was  reckoned  an 
event  of  such  importance,  that  it  found  full  men- 
tion in  that  invaluable  record  of  contemporary 
events,  the  "  Journal  "  of  Governor  Winthrop.  He 
is  there  described  as  a  young  man  of  excellent  parts, 
son  and  heir  to  Sir  Henry  Vane,  comptroller  of  the 
King's  household,  who  had  been  employed  in  the 
diplomatic  service,  but,  having  been  called  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  gospel,  had  forsaken  the  honors  and 
preferments  of  the  court  to  enjoy  the  ordinances  of 
Christ  in  their  purity  in  New  England.     His  father, 


I/O  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

a  mere  courtier,1  would  hardly  have  consented  to 
his  coming  had  not  the  King  interfered  and  gained 
for  the  youth  permission  to  reside  for  three  years  in 
the  colony.  So  it  was  through  the  good  offices  of 
Charles  the  First  that  Harry  Vane  was  allowed  to 
come  to  Massachusetts. 

Not  one  of  the  worthy  company  to  which  he 
joined  himself  had  come  with  a  purer  purpose,  or 
had  made  sacrifice  of  more  brilliant  prospects. 
Like  most  of  the  leaders  in  the  early  phase  of 
the  great  Puritan  movement,  he  belonged  to  the 
best  English  stock.  He  came  of  the  social  class 
of  which  Sir  John  Eliot  and  Hampden  were  mem- 
bers, one  of  his  ancestors  having  won  his  spurs  on 
the  bloody  field  of  Poitiers.  To  quote  his  own 
words,  almost  the  last  he  spoke  on  earth,  "  he  was  a 
gentleman  born  ;  had  the  education,  temper,  and 
spirit  of  a  gentleman  as  well  as  others."  But  in  his 
fourteenth  or  fifteenth  year,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  a 
great  change  came  over  him  ;  a  change,  the  imme- 
diate causes  of  which  are  not  described,  but  one 
so  radical  and  permanent  that  neither  the  allure- 
ments of  ambition,  nor  the  seductions  of  the  court, 
nor  the  dissipation  of  Oxford  could  subdue  it.  Es- 
caping from  the  ungenial  atmosphere  of  Laud's  pet 
university,  he  passed  some  time  at  Geneva,  at  length 
returning  to  England,  not  only  a  Puritan  in  relig- 
ion, but  a  pronounced  enemy  of  despotic  rule.  To 
those  who  thought  only  of  the  preferment  that  he 
sacrificed,  his  resolution  to  leave  his  own  country 
and  seek  a  refuge  in  the  New  World  doubtless 
seemed  like  folly,  but  he  himself  thus  spoke,  years 
after,  of  the   motives   which  then  influenced    him  : 

1  Gardiner  calls  him  "  a  mere  courtier."     Prince  Charles  and  the 
Spanish  Marriage,  vol    ii ,  p.  145. 


Sl/i  HENRY  VANE.  lj\ 

"  Since  my  early  youth,  through  grace,  I  have  been 
kept  steadfast,  desiring  to  walk  in  all  good  con- 
science towards  God  and  towards  man,  according 
to  the  best  light  and  understanding  God  gave  me. 
For  this  I  was  willing  to  turn  my  back  upon  my 
estate ;  expose  myself  to  hazards  in  foreign  parts  ; 
yet  nothing  seemed  difficult  to  me,  so  I  might  pre- 
serve faith  and  a  good  conscience,  which  I  prefer 
above  all  things." 

After  a  very  short  residence  at  Boston,  and  before 
he  had  completed  his  twenty-fourth  year,  he  was  by 
common  consent  chosen  Governor  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Colony.  And  because,  says  Winthrop  in  his 
"  Journal,"  "he  was  son  and  heir  to  the  Privy  Coun- 
sellor in  England,  the  ships  congratulated  his  elec- 
tion with  a  volley  of  great  shot."  It  is  probable  that 
Vane's  high  social  rank  had  much  to  do  with  his 
rapid  political  preferment.  The  Puritan  colony  of 
Massachusetts  never  shared  the  democratic  temper 
of  the  more  humble  Separatist  settlement  at  Plym- 
outh. It  is  an  indication  of  the  disposition  to  keep 
up  something  of  the  stately  customs  of  the  Old 
World,  that  when  the  governor  attended  public  wor- 
ship, four  sergeants,  with  halberds,  always  marched 
before  him.  But  it  would  be  wrong  to  trace  Vane's 
advancement  mainly  to  his  high  social  rank.  His 
eminent  personal  qualities  and  his  earnest  piety  had 
most  to  do  with  it.  His  administration  was  marked 
by  wisdom.  The  enthusiasm  shown  by  the  ships 
in  his  behalf,  he  turned  to  account  by  making  the 
masters,  whom  he  invited  to  dinner,  agree  that  in  fu- 
ture all  vessels  bound  to  Boston  should  anchor  below 
the  castle  till  their  character  had  been  ascertained  ; 
and  he  displayed  his  tact  by  the  manner  in  which  he 


172  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

met  the  complaint  of  the  masters  that  the  King's 
flag  was  not  flying  from  the  fort.  Yet  one  American 
historian,  Hildreth,  does  not  hesitate  to  represent 
Vane  as  acting  with  dissimulation  on   this  occasion. 

But  the  official  career  that  began  so  auspiciously 
was  destined  to  be  disturbed  by  the  most  bitter  con- 
troversy that  ever  divided  the  Massachusetts  Colony. 
To  enter  into  the  precise  points  of  this  famous  Anti- 
nomian  dispute  would  be  out  of  place  on  this  occa- 
sion, even  were  it  possible  that  a  modern  reader 
could  extract  intelligent  meaning  from  the  theolog- 
ical jargon  of  that  day.  Besides,  we  have  only  the 
account  of  one  of  the  contending  parties,  and  it  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  the  opposite  side  affirmed 
precisely  the  propositions  with  which  they  were  re- 
proached. In  the  lofty  regions  of  debate,  where 
language  loses  any  precise  significance,  misrepre- 
sentation was  easy,  and  misunderstanding  almost 
inevitable.  "  The  name  of  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchinson," 
says  Mr.  Palfrey,  "  is  dismally  conspicuous  in  the 
early  history  of  New  England,"  and  a  recent  writer, 
Dr.  Dexter,  applies  to  her  the  coarse  epithet  of  "  a 
first-class  disturber  of  the  peace."  But  a  historian 
of  wider  survey  and  more  profound  insight,  Mr. 
Bancroft,  says  :  "  The  principles  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son were  a  natural  consequence  of  the  progress  of 
the  Reformation." 

She  has  been  accused  of  eccentricity,  but  we 
must  remember  it  was  an  age  when  the  air  was  fra- 
grant with  new  opinions.  That  she  was  dissatis- 
fied with  the  formal,  precise,  and  austere  type  of 
piety  that  she  found  so  abundant,  is  very  clear. 
With  her  religion  was  less  a  creed,  than  an  inner 
experience  ;  and  to  her  enthusiastic  faith  the  Holy 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  1 73 

Ghost  seemed  actually  to  unite  itself  with  the  soul 
of  the  justified  person.  Like  all  who  are  much  in 
earnest  with  religious  truth,  she  lost  no  opportunity 
of  divulging  her  opinions,  and  in  imitation  of  a 
custom  that  obtained  with  the  Boston  church,  of 
holding  meetings  for  discussing  the  sermons  of  the 
ministers,  she  began  a  series  of  women's  meetings, 
where,  while  bestowing  unqualified  approval  upon 
the  teachings  of  Cotton  and  Wheelwright,  she 
boldly  denounced  the  other  ministers  of  the  colony, 
so  at  least  it  was  reported,  "  as  under  a  covenant 
of  works."  Out  of  this  came  a  controversy  which 
nearly  rent  the  infant  commonwealth  asunder.  It 
is  a  significant  fact  that  on  the  side  of  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson stands  the  whole  Boston  church,  with  five 
exceptions,  while  the  country  churches  took  strong 
ground  against  her.  Doubtless  there  was  not  the 
difference  then  that  now  exists  between  the  city  and 
the  country,  yet  the  leading  men  of  the  colony  were 
in  the  Boston  church,  and  it  should  be  remembered 
to  the  credit  of  Anne  Hutchinson,  that  those  who 
had  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  what  her  teach- 
ings really  were,  gave  her  the  most  hearty  counte- 
nance. Among  her  warm  supporters  were  John 
Cotton  and  the  young  Governor.  The  differences 
increased  more  and  more,  until  the  matter  was 
taken  up  by  the  General  Court.  Wheelwright,  for 
a  sermon  which  he  had  preached,  was  adjudged 
guilty  of  sedition.  A' protest  made  by  Vane  and  a 
few  members  of  the  Court,  was  not  received,  and  at 
the  next  election,  in  May,  1637,  Vane  and  his  friends 
were  left  out  of  office.  The  next  day  Vane  and 
Coddington  were  returned  as  deputies  from  Boston. 
In  this  memorable  controversy  it  seems  beyond 


174  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

dispute  that  what  mainly  interested  Vane  was  not 
so  much  the  precise  opinions  which  Anne  Hutchin- 
son maintained,  as  the  great  doctrine  of  religious 
liberty  which  he  conceived  to  be  imperilled.  It  was 
no  "  mocking  and  unquiet  fancy,"  such  as  Clarendon 
describes,  but  the  early  and  clear  apprehension  of 
the  great  principle  which  guided  and  illumined  his 
whole  subsequent  career.  This  is  plainly  shown  in 
his  paper  termed  "  A  Brief  Resume,"  in  which  he 
argues  against  the  order  of  Court,  passed  directly 
upon  his  removal  from  office,  forbidding  that  any 
should  inhabit  the  colony  but  such  as  were  expressly 
allowed  by  the  magistrates.  With  the  insight  of  a 
far-reaching  and  penetrating  intellect,  Vane  saw 
clearly  that  the  peculiar  theory  on  which  Massachu- 
setts had  been  planted  was  one  that  could  not  be 
maintained,  and  that  a  civil  state  could  not  be  built 
up  upon  an  entire  agreement  of  religious  faith.  He 
denied  that  either  the  commonwealth,  or  the  church, 
had  a  right  to  receive  or  to  reject  members  at  their 
discretion.  There  was  a  higher  law  to  which  they 
were  subject. 

The  reputation  of  Vane  has  suffered  for  the  reason 
that  in  this  famous  controversy  he  stood  opposed  to 
no  less  a  person  than  John  Winthrop.  Winthrop 
led  the  minority  of  the  Boston  church,  and  was  the 
recognized  head  of  the  country  party.  The  policy 
represented  by  Winthrop  for  the  time  prevailed. 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  her  principal  supporters  were 
exiled  from  the  colony ;  and  the  storm  was  succeeded 
by  external  calm.  By  the  majority  of  writers  Win- 
throp has  been  applauded  as  a  wise  magistrate  and 
a  consummate  statesman,  as  the  one  who,  more  than 
any   other,    raised    the    struggling   commonwealth 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  1 75 

while  Vane  has  been  condemned  as  an  inexperienced 
and  rash  enthusiast,  perilling  the  very  foundations 
of  civil  order  by  his  inconsiderate  zeal  for  wild  and 
impracticable  theories.  To  judge  either  of  these 
two  men  fairly  we  need  to  take  into  account  all  the 
considerations  which  influenced  them  ;  and  especially 
the  very  different  relation  in  which  they  stood  to  the 
memorable  enterprise  in  which  the  Massachusetts 
colony  was  then  engaged. 

It  is  with  hesitation  that  I  venture  to  offer  any 
observations  that  may  seem,  in  the  least,  to  conflict 
with  the  traditional  and  unqualified  veneration  that 
is  felt  for  the  first  Governor  of  Massachusetts.  If  in 
public  life,  courage,  firmness,  judgment,  unblemished 
integrity  and  honor,  disinterested  zeal  for  the  public 
good,  deserve  the  approbation  of  posterity,  this  ven- 
eration, which  in  Massachusetts  has  almost  amounted 
to  religious  faith,  has  not  been  unworthily  bestowed. 
Among  all  the  leaders  of  memorable  enterprises  that 
history  has  celebrated,  we  may  search  in  vain  for  a 
figure  more  venerable  and  imposing.  Nor  has  the 
recent  unveiling  of  his  personal  character,  in  the 
publication  of  his  private  letters  and  religious  med- 
itations, done  anything  to  lessen  this  respect.  In 
his  most  secret  experiences,  in  his  hopes  and  fears, 
in  his  joys  and  sorrows,  he  still  stands  before  us 
grave,  majestic,  spotless  as  the  marble  that  repre- 
sents him  in  the  chapel  at  Mount  Auburn,  type  of  a 
Puritan  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 

Yet,  while  in  this  controversy  I  have  no  disposi- 
tion to  withhold  from  Winthrop  the  praise  due  to  a 
wise,  a  prudent,  a  temperate  magistrate,  I  cannot 
withhold  from  Vane  praise  for  different,  and  I  must 
think,  higher  qualities.    To  comprehend  clearly  their 


176  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

relative  positions  we  must  remember  that  there  were 
in  Massachusetts,  at  this  time,  two  wholly  different 
parties,  parties  aiming  at  different  objects  and  ani- 
mated by  a  different  spirit.  One  of  these  parties, 
made  up  of  the  original  settlers,  the  members  of  the 
colonial  corporation,  the  men  who  devised  and  exe- 
cuted the  bold  transfer  of  the  Charter  by  which  a  sim- 
ple trading  company  in  England  became  transformed 
in  America  into  a  body  politic,  were,  as  was  very  nat- 
ural, mainly  intent  on  the  preservation  of  their  char- 
tered rights.  With  them  the  first  aim  was  to  build 
up  and  strengthen  the  infant  commonwealth.  Their 
greatest  dread  was  of  discord  and  division.  "The 
cracks  and  flaws  in  the  new  building  of  the  Reform- 
ation," said  the  soul-ravishing  Thomas  Shepard, 
"portend  a  fall."  Unlimited  religious  freedom  they 
viewed  with  especial  dread  as  fatal  to  that  unique 
civil  order  which  they  had  cemented  with  so  much 
sacrifice,  and  so  many  prayers.  Into  their  plan  had 
entered  no  purpose  of  establishing  a  universal  toler- 
ation ;  what  they  coveted  as  the  ideal  of  social  life 
was  a  compact  and  solid  commonwealth,  founded  in 
the  fear  of  God,  and  making  the  protection  of  pure 
religion  its  foremost  obligation.  In  this  wise  the  civil 
magistrate  had  no  more  sacred  duty  than  to  protect 
the  church,  and  what  they  understood  by  church  was 
not  a  confused  medley  of  the  devout  and  the  profane, 
but  the  earnest  supporters  of  a  definite  creed.  Yet 
mixed  up  with  this  were  more  worldly  interests.  Be- 
fore they  became  a  body  politic,  they  were  a  trading 
corporation.  The  advancement  of  their  private  ends 
was  ever  a  leading  aim.  In  the  gradual  growth  of 
the  great  trading  and  land  company  into  a  common- 
wealth, a  jealous  regard  for  their  legal  rights  and 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  1 77 

private  interests  was  strangely  combined  with  zeal 
for  higher  concerns. 

But,  beside  this  party  thus  embodying  the  com- 
bined religious  and  mercantile  spirit  of  the  original 
company,  there  existed  another,  made  up  of  new 
comers,  and  animated  by  a  different  spirit,  a  party 
not  so  much  concerned  for  the  success  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts company,  as  for  the  interests  of  spiritual 
freedom ;  thinking  less  of  strengthening  and  build- 
ing up  the  particular  enterprise  in  which  the  first 
settlers  were  engaged,  than  of  following  out,  in  the 
joy  of  an  unchecked  liberty,  that  pursuit  of  eternal 
and  ideal  truth,  which  in  the  Old  World  had  been  de- 
nied them.  These  had  been  allured  to  the  New 
World  by  the  vision  of  a  land  where  the  principles 
of  the  Reformation  would  be  allowed  their  logical 
development.  Their  ideal  was  not  of  a  sober,  well- 
regulated,  thrifty  colony,  where  controversy  should 
cease,  and  truth  should  flourish,  but  of  a  community 
opening  its  hospitable  doors  to  all  opinions,  where 
those  professing  error  should  not  be  denied  cohabi- 
tation, where  even  Ishmael  should  dwell  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  brethren. 

The  first  of  these  parties  naturally  looked  to  Win- 
throp  ;  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  second  was 
young  Harry  Vane.  By  temperament,  by  education, 
by  position,  Winthrop  was  pledged  to  the  party  of 
order  ;  by  intellectual  breadth,  by  spiritual  insight, 
and  also  by  position  Vane  was  as  much  pledged  to  the 
liberal  side.  Winthrop  was  an  English  country  gen- 
tleman, of  middle  life,  of  moderate  opinions,  of  hand- 
some property,  who  gave  up  his  fair  Suffolk  home, 
transported  himself  and  his  family  to  these  shores, 
made   this   his   abiding    place,   fixed  all   his   worldly 

12 


I78  SIR  HENRY   VANE. 

interests  here.  It  was  not  only  natural,  it  was  per- 
fectly right  and  proper,  that  a  jealous  care  for  the 
success  of  the  enterprise,  for  which  he  had  sacrificed 
so  much,  should  have  supplied  a  large  motive  to  his 
action.  With  the  savages  on  one  side,  with  constant 
dread  of  interference  from  the  mother  country  on 
the  other,  but  firmly  resolved  to  persevere  at  any 
cost  in  the  experiment  which  they  had  undertaken, 
it, was  not  strange  that  Winthrop,  and  men  situated 
like  Winthrop,  should  have  felt  and  acted  as  they 
did. 

Vane,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  young  man,  with 
no  family,  with  no  worldly  concerns  at  stake,  at  best 
but  a  sojourner  in  the  community  which  so  gener- 
ously conferred  upon  him  its  highest  honors.  To 
him  Massachusetts  was  a  means,  not  an  end.  He 
was  in  no  way  connected  with  the  original  company ; 
in  the  enterprise  as  a  commercial  speculation  he  had 
no  share.  What  had  brought  him  to  the  New  World 
was  the  single  desire  to  preserve  faith  and  a  good 
conscience.  This  seemed  to  him  the  sum  of  all  social 
and  political  experiments.  For  this  he  had  been 
willing  to  renounce  preferment  and  wealth.  He 
came  in  search  of  an  ideal,  of  such  an  ideal  as  then 
existed  only  in  his  own  fervid  imagination.  He  had 
heard  the  complaints  of  those  who  had  suffered  for 
conscience'  sake  ;  he  dreamed  of  a  land  where  con- 
science should  not  be  molested  under  pretense  of 
protecting  the  civil  power ;  his  confident  and  eager 
faith  picturing  in  New  England  a  spring  of  liberty 
pure  and  perennial  as  that  fount  of  immortal  youth 
which  the  Spanish  explorers  had  sought  amid  the 
everglades  of  Florida. 

Has  not  the  time  come  to  render  full  justice  to  both 


Sf/l   HENRY   VANE.  1 79 

these  men  ?  We  may  applaud  Winthrop  as  an  honest, 
a  capable,  a  judicious  magistrate,  and  still  not  re- 
proach Vane  as  a  mischief-maker  and  fanatic.  To 
Winthrop  may  belong  the  more  grateful  mention  in 
the  annals  of  Massachusetts,  but  on  the  page  of 
that  more  inspiring  story  that  concerns  itself  not 
with  corporate  interests,  the  success  of  trading  com- 
panies, and  the  temporary  expedients  of  colonial 
enterprise,  but  with  the  immutable  principles  of 
man's  spiritual  nature,  and  the  long  warfare  waged 
by  the  sons  of  light  against  the  evil  powers  that  have 
stood  in  the  way  of  ideal  truth,  that  page  in  whose 
deathless  record  live  the  unsceptered  monarchs  "  who 
still  rule  our  spirits  from  their  urns,"  shall  not  some 
place  be  assigned  to  Harry  Vane  ? 

Thoroughly  disheartened  by  the  turn  that  things 
were  taking  in  Massachusetts,  and  doubtless  with 
the  natural  impatience  of  a  young  and  ardent  mind, 
at  finding  its  dreams  so  rudely  dissipated,  Vane  re- 
turned to  England  in  August,  1637.  Baxter  after- 
wards took  pains  to  repeat  the  slander,  that  he  stole 
away  by  night,  but  Winthrop's  trustworthy^  record 
tells  us  that  he  was  honorably  dismissed,  a  great 
concourse  of  his  friends  attending  him  to  the  ves- 
sel, and  the  guns  of  the  castle  giving  a  parting  sa- 
lute. The  salute  was  by  Winthrop's  order,  who  was 
too  great  and  magnanimous  a  man  to  allow  public 
differences  to  interfere  with  private  courtesy.  As 
Vane  took  his  last  look  at  the  thatched  roof  and 
humble  meeting-house  that  long  nestled  among  the 
three  hills  of  the  Puritan  town,  his  spirit  doubtless 
would  have  been  comforted  could  the  veil  that  hid 
the  future  be  drawn  aside,  and  could  he  have  seen 
the  village  grown  to  a  great  city,  a  city  destined  to 


ISO  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

be  renowned  beyond  all  others  for  tolerance  of  opin- 
ion, and  for  her  eagerness  in  learning  or  in  telling 
some  new  thing. 

And  one  can  but  muse  on  what  might  have  been 
the  effect  on  the  later  history  of  Massachusetts  had 
she  persisted  in  this  early  policy  of  banishing  to 
Rhode  Island  all  her  bright  and  enterprising  wits. 
She  would  doubtless  have  secured  a  thrifty  and  well 
ordered  social  life  ;  she  might  have  developed  her 
material  resources  ;  she  might  have  subdued  her 
sterile  soil ;  might  have  coined  her  ice  and  granite 
into  gold  ;  still  I  can  but  fancy  she  would  have  lacked 
some  of  the  things  that  have  given  her  renown  : 
she  might  have  produced  historians  like  Cotton 
Mather,  and  poets  like  Michael  Wigglesworth,  but 
she  would  hardly  have  enriched  our  literature  with 
Bancroft  and  Motley  and  Lowell,  she  would  hardly 
have  welcomed  the  wide  humanity  of  Channing,  and 
hardly  have  lent  an  ear  to  the  subtle  wisdom  of  Em- 
erson. 

Well  for  her  that  she  did  not  cast  away  the  wine 
of  Puritanism  simply  to  swallow  the  dregs  ! 

But  Vane's  connection  with  this  country  was  not 
destined  to  be  terminated  by  his  return  to  England. 
When  he  first  became  acquainted  with  Roger  Wil- 
liams we  are  not  informed,  but  two  days  after  he 
landed,  the  sentence  of  banishment  was  pronounced 
against  Williams,  and  Vane  must  very  early  have 
had  his  attention  drawn  to  one  who,  like  himself, 
chose  rather  to  taste  the  bitterness  of  death  than  act 
with  a  doubting  conscience.  They  must  very  soon 
have  been  brought  together,  for  years  after,  Eoger 
Williams,  in  writing  of  the  settlement  of  the  beau- 
tiful  island  which  had  attracted  the  notice  of  the 


SIR  HENRY   VANE.  l8l 

bold  Florentine  navigator  nearly  a  century  before 
the  Pilgrims  had  landed  at  Plymouth,  says  :  "  It 
was  not  price  nor  money  that  could  have  purchased 
the  island.  Rhode  Island  was  obtained  by  love,  by 
the  love  and  favor  which  that  honorable  gentleman, 
Sir  Henry  Vane,  and  myself  had  with  the  great 
sachem  Miantinomo."  And  when,  in  consequence 
of  the  persistent  hostility  of  Massachusetts,  the  set- 
tlements on  the  Narragansett  were  almost  on  the 
verge  of  being  blotted  from  the  map,  it  was  mainly 
through  the  powerful  interference  of  Vane  that  they 
succeeded  in  obtaining  a  "  free  and  absolute  char- 
ter of  civil  government."  This  charter  was  wholly 
unique  in  colonial  history.  All  former  charters  had 
been  granted  by  favor  of  the  crown,  or  under  charters 
thus  granted,  and  had  aimed  at  establishing  exclu- 
sive companies,  in  most  cases  with  limited  provis- 
ion for  civic  liberty.  But  the  Long  Parliament  was 
now  in  the  ascendant,  and  the  control  over  colonies 
formerly  vested  in  the  crown  was  entrusted  to  a 
committee  of  Parliament,  at  the  head  of  which  was 
placed  the  Earl  of  Warwick.  Under  authority  of 
this  body,  the  "well  affected  and  industrious  inhab- 
itants "  along  the  Naragansett  were  granted  full  pow- 
ers and  authority  to  govern  themselves.  "  Thus," 
says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  to  the  Long  Parliament,  and 
especially  to  Sir  Henry  Vane,  Rhode  Island  owes  its 
existence  as  a  political  State."  Vane  was  naturally 
zealous  to  secure  legal  recognition  for  a  community 
whose  polity  was  framed  in  precise  accordance  with 
his  own  theory  of  religious  liberty. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  time  that  Rhode  Island 
was  indebted  to  the  same  powerful  intercession. 
When,  in  165 1,  Coddington  had  succeeded  in  secur- 


1 82  S/J?  HENRY  VANE. 

ing  from  the  Council  of  State  a  commission  for 
governing  the  islands  of  Rhode  Island  and  Canon- 
icut  for  life,  a  dismemberment  of  the  infant  com- 
monwealth that  must  inevitably  have  resulted  in 
transferring  the  remaining  portion  of  her  soil  to  the 
adjacent  colonies,  and  when  Williams  was  sent  to 
England  to  procure  a  revocation  of  this  extraordi- 
nary grant,  it  was  wholly  through  the  vigorous  inter- 
position of  Vane  that  his  mission  was  accomplished. 
Writing  from  Bellan,  Vane's  seat  in  Lincolnshire, 
under  date  of  April  I,  1653,  to  his  "  Dear  and  loving 
friends  and  neighbors  of  Providence  and  Warwick," 
Williams  says,  "  Under  God  the  sheet  anchor  of  our 
ship  is  Sir  Harry."  His  unflagging  interest  in  the 
little  colony  prompted  him  soon  after  to  write  a 
letter  in  which  he  besought  the  settlers  to  compose 
some  differences  then  troubling  them.  The  answer 
of  the  colony  to  this  letter,  for  dignity  and  feeling, 
will  not  suffer  by  comparison  with  any  state  paper 
of  any  age  or  country. 

"  From  the  first  beginning  of  the  Providence  colony," 
thus  ran  the  address,  '*  you  have  been  a  noble  and 
true  friend  to  an  outcast  and  despised  people.  We  have 
ever  reaped  the  sweet  fruits  of  your  constant  loving  kind- 
ness and  favor.  We  have  long  drunk  of  the  cup  of  as 
great  liberties  as  any  people  that  we  can  hear  of  under 
the  whole  heaven.  When  we  are  gone,  our  posterity  and 
children,  after  us,  shall  read,  in  our  town  records,  your 
loving  kindness  to  us,  and  our  real  endeavors  after  peace 
and  righteousness." 

Vane's  career  in  Massachusetts  may  have  seemed 
to  himself,  as  doubtless  it  seemed  to  others,  a  mor- 
tifying failure,  but  he  left  a  deep  mark  on  the  insti- 
tutions   of  the   New  World.      Systems  perish,  but 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  1 83 

ideas  are  indestructible.  The  curious  theocratic 
state,  built  up  with  so  much  pains  by  Winthrop 
and  his  connections,  has  passed  away.  The  princi- 
ple of  entire  religious  liberty,  which,  through  the 
efforts  of  Vane,  received  for  the  first  time  in  Chris- 
tendom a  recognition  in  Rhode  Island,  has  con- 
tinued to  grow  till  the  whole  land  sits  under  the 
shadow  of  it. 

During  Vane's  stay  in  Massachusetts  events  had 
been  rapidly  ripening.  Ten  months  before  he  left, 
the  judgment  respecting  ship-money  had  been  re- 
covered against  John  Hampden,  and  when  he  landed, 
England  was  ringing  with  the  uproar  caused  by 
Laud's  attempt  to  force  his  liturgy  upon  the  Scotch. 
In  April,  1640,  the  Short  Parliament  was  called, 
in  which  Vane  for  the  first  time  took  his  seat. 
Through  the  influence  of  his  father,  still  an  influ- 
ential adviser  of  the  King,  he  was  made  first  treas- 
urer of  the  navy,  and  soon  after,  with  the  hope,  ap- 
parently of  attaching  him  to  the  court,  received  the 
honor  of  knighthood.  In  November,  1640,  the 
Long  Parliament  assembled,  and  from  this  time  the 
career  of  Vane  becomes  identified  with  the  most 
stirring  period  of  English  history.  To  know  that 
is  to  know  with  what  address  and  eloquence  he  ad- 
vocated the  great  principles  of  civil  liberty,  the 
maintenance  of  which  made  the  Long  Parliament 
the  most  memorable  deliberative  body  that  met ;  to 
know  with  what  skill  and  success  he  managed  the 
most  difficult  negotiations  with  the  Scotch  ;  with 
what  ability  he  wielded  the  naval  power  of  Eng- 
land ;  with  what  persistent  and  unshaken  courage 
he  defended  the  rights  of  Parliament  against  what 
he  regarded  as  the  dangerous  encroachments  of  mil- 


1 84  SIR  HENRY   VAA'E. 

itary  power.  Though  strongly  opposed  to  the  King, 
he  had  never  favored  the  domination  of  the  army, 
and  when,  by  the  act  of  Colonel  Pride,  the  authority 
of  Parliament  had  been  virtually  subverted,  disdain- 
ing to  share  a  triumph  purchased  by  means  which 
he  could  not  sanction,  he  retired  to  private  life. 
The  final  proceedings,  resulting  in  the  execution  of 
the  King,  he  strongly  disapproved. 

The  most  successful  part  of  Vane's  career  was  his 
superb  administration  of  the  navy  during  the  Com- 
monwealth. It  was  here  that  his  genius  for  prac- 
tical affairs  was  as  conspicuously  displayed,  as  his 
eloquence  and  address  had  been  proved  in  a  different 
sphere.  When  the  war  with  the  Provinces  began 
the  Dutch  were  undisputed  lords  of  the  seas.  Before 
it  closed,  the  energy  of  Vane  and  the  valor  of  Blake 
had  raised  England  to  the  first  rank  of  naval  powers. 
Between  the  two  men  there  existed  a  profound 
agreement  in  political  sentiment,  and  long  as  a  vessel 
floats  to  bear  aloft  the  red  banner  of  St.  George,  the 
names  of  Harry  Vane  and  of  Robert  Blake  will  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath.  But  I  pass  from  a 
familiar  story,  and  from  passages  in  his  history 
which  the  least  generous  of  his  critics  have  been 
forced  to  mention  with  applause,  to  consider  his  re- 
lations with  Cromwell,  relations  which  have  affected 
more  than  anything  else  his  reputation  with  poster- 
ity. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  most  brilliant 
statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth  is  better  known  to 
the  mass  of  readers  by  Cromwell's  petulant  exclama- 
tion when  he  dissolved  the  Long  Parliament,  "the 
Lord  deliver  me  from  Sir  Harry  Vane,"  than  he  is 
by  any  act  in  his  long  career.  Without  pausing  to 
inquire   what   Cromwell    meant,  if    indeed  what   he 


SIR  HENRY   VANE.  1 85 

meant  was  clear  to  his  own  mind,  without  asking 
which  was  right  in  the  contest  which  was  thus  vio- 
lently concluded,  men,  impressed  and  captivated  by 
the  colossal  force  of  Cromwell's  character,  have 
hastily  inferred  that  Vane  was  an  impracticable  vis- 
ionary, whose  speculations  no  man  could  understand, 
and  whose  schemes  no  age  could  reduce  to  practice. 
That  Vane  should  have  been  misjudged  by  a  man 
like  Clarendon,  who  hated  with  all  the  energy  of  a 
powerful  but  narrow  mind  the  political  theories 
which  Vane  so  vigorously  supported  ;  that  he  should 
have  been  misrepresented  by  Baxter,  who  disliked 
his  theological  opinions  ;  that  he  should  have  been 
held  in  suspicion  by  the  whole  band  of  prosaic,  com- 
monplace fanatics,  who  prefer  forms  to  essence  and 
words  to  things,  was  to  be  expected ;  but  he  has  been 
most  depreciated  by  some  whose  only  ground  of 
dislike  was  his  opposition  to  Cromwell. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  Cromwell  and 
Vane  had  stood  side  by  side.  They  were  not  only 
in  hearty  agreement  in  political  opinion,  but  they 
both,  in  opposition  to  Presbyterian  as  well  as  Church- 
man, advocated  an  unlimited  toleration  in  religion. 
The  great  measures  of  the  Long  Parliament  which 
had  laid  the  foundations  of  Cromwell's  military  suc- 
cess, the  new  model  and  the  self-denying  ordinances, 
were  measures  to  which  Vane  had  given  an  enthusi- 
astic support.  That  strange  force,  which,  as  Macau - 
lay  says,  "  from  the  time  when  it  was  remodelled  to 
the  time  when  it  was  disbanded  never  found  an 
enemy  who  could  stand  its  onset,"  was  in  part  Vane's 
creation.  After  the  death  of  the  King,  Vane  and 
Cromwell  were  cordially  united  in  establishing  the 
Commonwealth.    No  person  familiar  with  public  sen- 


1 86  SIR  HENRY   VANE. 

timent  supposed  that  anything  like  a  majority  of  the 
English  people  were  favorable  to  this  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  it  was  hoped  by  the  leaders  that  a  wise 
and  successful  administration  of  affairs  would  in 
time  bring  many  to  its  support  who  at  first  received 
it  with  dislike. 

It  was  not  until  the  refusal  of  Fairfax  to  march 
against  the  Scotch  left  Cromwell  in  supreme  com- 
mand of  the  army,  that  Vane  seems  to  have  felt 
any  suspicions  of  his  intentions.  The  crowning 
mercy  of  Worcester  laid  everything  at  the  victorious 
general's  feet.  The  issue  lay  between  the  Parliament 
and  the  army.  Since  the  establishment  of  the  Com- 
monwealth the  question,  How  a  new  Parliament 
should  be  convened,  had  been  earnestly  debated.  It 
was  recognized  by  all  that  the  remnant  left  of  the 
Long  Parliament  no  longer  possessed  a  national 
character  ;  but  respecting  the  remedy,  opinions  were 
divided.  But  the  Rump  and  the  army  were  aware 
that  a  free  election  would  probably  result  in  a  roy- 
alist Parliament,  and  both  shrunk  from  an  appeal  to 
the  popular  voice.  The  remedy  at  last  proposed  by 
Vane  was  to  fill  the  vacant  seats,  allowing  the  old 
members  to  hold  over  ;  the  remedy  advocated  by 
Cromwell  was  to  call  a  new  Parliament,  to  be  freely 
elected,  but  with  such  constitutional  securities  as 
would  effectually  guard  against  a  royalist  reaction. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  for  my  present  purpose  to 
discuss  the  merits  of  this  controversy.  "  Now  that 
the  King  is  dead  and  his  son  defeated,"  Cromwell 
said  to  the  Parliament,  "  it  is  time  to  come  to  a  set- 
tlement." But  the  bill  for  dissolving  Parliament 
was  only  passed,  after  bitter  opposition,  by  a  majority 
of  two  ;  and  by  a  compromise  that  permitted  the 


SIX  HENRY  VANE.  1 87 

House  to  sit  for  three  years  longer.  To  add  to  the 
discontent  charges  of  corruption  were  freely  brought 
against  some  members.  The  only  remedy,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  army,  was  a  new  House;  but  this  step 
the  House  was  determined  to  avert.  Hardly  had 
the  Dutch  war  been  declared  when  the  army  peti- 
tioned for  an  explicit  declaration  that  the  House 
would  bring  its  proceedings  to  a  close.  This  forced 
the  House  to  discuss  the  question,  but  only  brought 
out  the  resolve  of  the  members  to  continue  as  part 
of  the  new  Parliament  without  reelection.  A  con- 
ference took  place  between  the  leaders  of  the  Com- 
mons and  the  officers  of  the  House.  The  attempt 
of  Vane  to  hurry  the  bill  through  the  House  resulted 
in  Cromwell's  forcible  dissolution  of  the  Rump  Par- 
liament. 

With  regard  to  this  difference  between  Vane  and 
Cromwell,  as  with  the  difference  between  Vane  and 
Winthrop,  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  judge  both 
men  fairly.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Vane  honestly 
suspected  Cromwell  of  aiming  at  supreme  power, 
and  there  need  be  no  doubt  that  Cromwell  honestly 
thought  that  Vane  was  playing  him  a  trick.  But 
both  were  sincerely  bent  on  realizing  the  same 
great  object  ;  both  were  aiming  at  a  free  state,  gov- 
erned by  its  elected  representatives,  and  providing 
sufficient  guarantees  for  liberty  of  thought  and 
speech.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  two  men,  so 
unlike  in  temper  and  habits  as  Vane  and  Cromwell, 
should  fail  to  understand  each  other.  We  have  had 
one  illustration,  in  our  own  country,  in  the  quarrel 
between  General  Grant  and  the  late  Senator  Sum- 
ner, of  the  way  in  which  two  thoroughly  honest 
men,  both  aiming  at  the  same  results,  may  come  to 


1 88  SIR   HENRY   VANE. 

suspect  each  other's  motives.  But  nothing  would 
be  more  unsafe  than  to  base  one's  estimate  of  the 
character  or  services  of  such  men  upon  the  opin- 
ions which  they  thus  mutually  entertained. 

Because  Cromwell  was  a  man  of  action,  always 
aiming  at  practical  results,  it  has  been  hastily  con- 
cluded that  Vane  was  a  mere  theorist,  and  that,  in 
pursuit  of  an  unattainable  ideal,  he  was  ready  to 
sacrifice  a  positive  good.  Nothing  can  do  his  char- 
acter as  a  statesman  a  greater  wrong.  Vane  was 
not  a  visionary  politician  seeking  to  brush  away  the 
old  institutions  of  his  country,  and  set  up  new  ones, 
with  no  root  whatever  in  the  soil.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  prove,  either  from  his  speeches  or  writ- 
ings, that  he  was  ever  a  theoretical  republican, 
intent  on  establishing  at  all  hazards  a  particular 
political  form.  In  a  "  Treatise  on  Government," 
written  shortly  before  his  death,  he  says  :  "  It  is  not 
so  much  the  form  of  the  administration  as  the  thing 
administered,  wherein  the  good  or  evil  of  govern- 
ment doth  consist."  The  great  objects  which  he  kept 
steadily  in  view,  were  a  reform  of  representatives, 
freedom  of  thought,  and  perfect  toleration  in  relig- 
ion. If  he  supported  .a  republic,  it  was  because  he 
saw  that  these  could  not  be  secured  under  a  mon- 
archy. 

But  it  is  an  error  to  infer  that  he  was  animated 
by  any  spirit  of  hostility  to  the  ancient  institutions 
of  England. 

"  However  I  have  been  misunderstood  and  misjudged," 
he  says  of  himself,  "  I  can  truly  affirm,  that  in  the  whole 
series  of  my  actions,  that  which  I  have  had  in  my  eye, 
hath  been  to  preserve  the  ancient  well-constituted  gov- 
ernment of  England  on  its  own  basis  and  primitive  right 


S/J?  HENRY  VANE.  1 89 

eous  foundations,  most  learnedly  stated  by  Fortescue  in 
his  book,  made  in  praise  of  the  English  laws,  and  I  did 
account  it  the  most  likely  means  for  the  effecting  of  this 
to  preserve  it  at  least  in  its  root,  whatever  changes  and 
alterations  it  might  be  exposed  to  in  its  branches,  through 
the  blusterous  and  stormy  times  that  have  passed  over  us." 

These  are  surely  not  the  words  of  a  wild  political 
enthusiast  ! 

Yet  Vane  was  opposed  to  Cromwel ,  and  hence 
the  eulogists  of  the  one  have  felt  it  necessary  to  de- 
fame the  other.  No  one  has  gone  farther  in  this 
direction  than  Carlyle  :  — 

"A  man  of  endless  virtues,"  he  sneeringly  says  of 
Vane,  "  and  of  endless  intellect,  but  you  must  not  very 
specially  ask  How  and  When  ?  Vane  was  the  friend  of 
Milton  ;  that  is  almost  the  only  answer  that  can  be  given 
—  a  man,  one  rather  finds,  of  light  fibre,  —  grant  all  man- 
ner of  purity  and  elevation,  subtle  high  discourse,  much 
intellectual  and  practical  dexterity,  an  amiable,  devoutly 
zealous,  very  pretty  man,  but  not  a  royal  man,  —  on  the 
whole,  rather  a  thin  man,  whose  tendency  is  towards  the 
abstract,  and  whose  hold  of  the  concrete  is  by  no  means 
that  of  a  giant." 

A  passage  such  as  this  may  well  suggest  a  doubt 
whether  the  biographer  of  Frederic  the  Great  was, 
after  all,  the  man  to  trace  the  stages  of  a  struggle 
into  which  conscience  so  powerfully  entered,  whether 
a  vision  so  purblind  by  the  worship  of  me.re  force 
could  appreciate  the  finer  qualities  of  the  moral 
hero  ! 

Surely  another  answer  might  be  given.  Did  they 
think  Vane  a  man  of  rather  light  fibre  who  saw 
him  stand  in  the  forefront  of  the  great  debates  that 
ended  in  sending  Strafford  to  the  block,  those  de- 


190  SIR  HENRY  VANE. 

bates,  during  which,  said  Ludlow,  who  knew  him 
well,  "  he  soon  made  appear  how  capable  he  was 
of  managing  great  affairs,  possessing  in  the  high- 
est perfection  a  quick  and  ready  apprehension,  a 
strong  and  tenacious  memory,  a  profound  and  pene- 
trating judgment,  a  just  and  noble  eloquence." 

Did  they  think  him  simply  a  pretty  man,  who 
selected  him  to  conduct  the  difficult  negotiations 
with  the  Scotch,  speaking  of  which  Lord  Clarendon, 
his  life-long  and  bitter  enemy,  declares,  that  having 
mentioned  Sir  Harry  Vane  as  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners, the  others  need  not  be  named,  since  he 
was  all  in  any  business  in  which  others  were  joined 
with  him?  "A  man,"  he  adds,  "of  extraordinary 
parts  and  great  understanding,  of  whose  ability 
there  need  no  more  be  said  than  that  he  was  chosen 
to  cover  and  deceive  a  whole  nation  who  excel  in 
craft  and  cunning." 

Or  did  they  deem  him  a  mere  dreamer  of  ab- 
stractions, with  no  hold  on  the  concrete,  who  in  the 
hour  of  distress  and  danger  gave  him  England's 
right  hand  to  wield,  and  who  recognized  the  proof 
of  his  rare  administrative  genius  in  the  unparalleled 
exertions  that  were  crowned  with  the  most  brilliant 
naval  victory  England  had  gained  since  the  Great 
Armada  ?  Or  lastly,  did  Milton  share  this  estimate 
of  Vane  when  he  wrote  the  admiring  lines  :  — 

"  Vane,  young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsel  old, 

Than  whom  a  better  senator  ne'er  held 

The  helm  of  Rome,  when  gowns,  not  arms,  repell'd 
The  fierce  Epirot  and  the  African  bold. 
Whether  to  settle  peace,  or  to  unfold 

The  drift  of  hollow  states  hard  to  be  spell'd, 

Then  to  advise  how  war  may,  best  upheld, 
Move  by  her  two  main  nerves,  iron  and  gold, 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  ICjI 

In  all  her  equipage  :  besides  to  know 
Both  spiritual  power  and  civil,  what  each  means, 
What  severs  each,  thou  hast  learn'd,  which  few  have  done  : 
The  bounds  of  either  sword  to  thee  we  owe : 
Therefore  on  thy  firm  hand  Religion  leans 
In  peace,  and  reckons  thee  her  eldest  son." 

Mr.  Masson,  in  the  recently  published  volumes 
of  his  "  Life  of  Milton,"  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  "  Defensio  Secunda,"  which  was  printed 
in  1654,  two  years  after  this  sonnet  was  written, 
while  elaborate  panegyrics  of  Bradshaw  and  Fairfax 
and  other  leading  men  of  the  Commonwealth  are 
introduced,  no  mention  whatever  is  made  of  Vane. 
But  while  this  pamphlet  proves  beyond  all  doubt 
that  Milton  indorsed  heartily  the  policy  that  Crom- 
well had  adopted,  since  he  expresses  his  approval 
not  only  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Rump  and  the 
Interim  Dictatorship,  but  also  of  the  Protectorate 
after  the  failure  of  the  Barebones  Parliament,  yet 
it  has  nothing  to  indicate  that  his  exalted  estimate 
of  Vane's  abilities  had  been  in  the  least  modified. 
In  this  very  Defense  he  recommends  a  dissolution 
of  the  connection  of  Church  and  State,  and  a  return 
to  absolute  voluntaryism  in  religion,  —  the  precise 
measures  with  which  Vane  had  all  along  been  iden- 
tified. In  a  production  meant  to  recommend  to  the 
Protector  a  particular  policy,  Milton  could  hardly 
have  praised  Cromwell's  most  pronounced  oppo- 
nent. 

But  we  need  no  better  proof  of  the  estimate  in 
which  Vane  was  held  by  those  who  had  the  best 
means  of  taking  his  true  measure  than  is  furnished 
in  the  events  which  followed  the  Restoration.  When 
Charles  II.  returned,  hailed  with  a  frenzy  of  long- 
suppressed  loyalty,  Vane  left  his  seat  in  Lincolnshire, 


I92  S/J?  HENRY   VANE 

and  came  up  to  London.  He  was  unconscious,  he 
said,  of  having  done  anything  for  which  he  could 
not  cheerfully  give  account.  He  had  taken  no  share 
in  the  trial  and  death  of  Charles  I.  The  new  king 
had  promised  a  generous  indemnity  for  political 
offenses.  Nevertheless,  in  July,  1660,  Vane  was 
arrested  and  flung  into  the  Tower  ;  and  to  flatter  a 
sovereign,  himself  incapable  either  of  love  or  hate, 
—  who  at  all  times  assumed  a  cynical  disbelief  in 
human  virtue  as  simply  a  trick  by  which  hypocrites 
impose  on  fools,  —  he  was  arraigned  for  high  trea- 
son in  1662.  Denied  the  assistance  of  counsel,  and 
even  refused  a  copy  of  the  indictment  to  which  he 
was  called  to  plead,  alone,  but  unterrified,  the  pris- 
oner made  a  masterly  defense,  speaking,  as  he  de- 
clared to  his  judges,  "  not  for  his  own  sake  only,  but 
for  theirs  and  for  posterity." 

The  condemnation  of  Vane  was  a  double  outrage  : 
first,  on  public  decency,  as  it  was  a  violation  of  the 
King's  express  promise  of  indemnity ;  and,  second, 
on  public  justice,  as  it  was  directly  in  the  face  of  a 
wholesome  principle  of  English  law,  having  the  force 
of  a  statute  since  the  time  of  Henry  VII.,  which 
exempted  from  the  penalties  of  treason  all  subjects 
obeying  a  de  facto  sovereign.  But  the  most  conclu- 
sive defense  was  idle,  for  the  trial  was  a  farce.  Back 
of  judges  and  jury  a  malignant  influence  was  pushing 
on  the  foregone  conclusion.  In  a  note  which  has 
been  preserved,  addressed  by  Charles  to  Clarendon, 
he  says  of  Vane,  "  Certainly  he  is  too  dangerous  a 
man  to  let  live,  if  we  can  honestly  put  him  out  of 
the  way."  Idler  and  voluptuary  as  he  was,  Charles 
II.  was  a  shrewd  judge  of  men.  Holding  them  all 
in  a  kind  of  assumed  contempt,  he  hereby  divined 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  1 93 

their  differences  of  character.  And  when  Charles 
thus  wrote  of  a  man  that  he  "  was  too  danger- 
ous to  let  live,"  it  surely  does  not  seem  likely  that 
he  regarded  him  simply  as  a  "  pretty  man,"  as  a 
visionary  theorist,  who  had  no  hold  on  the  con- 
crete. 

The  end  was  not  long  in  coming.  On  Wednes- 
day, the  nth  of  June,  Vane  stood  at  the  bar  to  re- 
ceive his  sentence,  and  on  the  Saturday  following  a 
vast  concourse  crowded  every  window  and  house-top 
over  against  the  Tower  to  see  him  pass  to  execution. 
As  the  gloomy  portals  opened,  and  while  the  great 
multitude  cried  out,  "  The  Lord  go  with  you  !  "  a 
stately  figure,  dressed  in  black,  with  scarlet  waist- 
coat, bowed  constant  acknowledgments  as  the  sled 
was  slowly  drawn  to  the  slight  eminence  just  out- 
side the  walls,  on  which  stood  the  scaffold  and  the 
block. 

There  are  few  spots  on  earth  round  which  such 
sad  memories  cluster.  On  that  same  eminence, 
twenty  years  before,  with  spirit  as  undaunted,  put- 
ting off  his  doublet  as  cheerfully,  he  said,  as  ever  he 
had  done  at  night,  had  stood  the  great  Earl  of  Straf- 
ford. Thither,  a  few  years  after  Strafford,  victim  of 
a  bigotry  as  cruel  and  unreasonable  as  that  of  which 
himself  had  been  accused,  had  come  Archbishop 
Laud.  On  the  same  blood-stained  hillock  had  stood, 
in  the  preceding  century,  Guilford  Dudley,  the  hus- 
band of  Jane  Grey,  his  gentle  wife  watching  from  a 
window  as  he  walked  along,  and  waiting  to  see  his 
headless  trunk  brought  back  ;  and  the  Protector  Som- 
erset, whose  high  personal  courage  could  not  atone 
for  political  faults,  but  whose  errors  were  forgotten 
in  his  tragical  end ;  and  the  young  Earl  of  Surrey, 


194  SIR   HENRY  VANE. 

whose  enduring  monument  was  the  enriching  of  Eng- 
lish poetry  with  blank  verse  ;  and  Thomas  Cromwell, 
perhaps  the  most  perplexing  figure  in  the  whole  line 
of  English  statesmen,  who  blended  the  maxims  of 
Italy  with  the  policy  of  Henry,  and  struck  the 
death-blow  to  Papal  supremacy  in  the  confiscation 
of  the  monasteries. 

But  before  all  these,  in  merit  as  in  time,  there 
had  come  another  sufferer,  the  first  conspicuous 
victim  of  the  attempt  to  stretch  the  royal  preroga- 
tive, as  Vane  was  the  last.  Between  Sir  Thomas 
More  and  Sir  Harry  Vane  there  may  seem  in  com- 
mon at  first  sight  simply  the  mode  of  death  :  one 
laying  his  head  on  the  block,  as  he  did,  out  of  su- 
preme devotion  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  delighting 
in  her  rites  and  doctrines  ;  the  other,  in  his  zeal  for 
spiritual  liberty,  suspected  of  discarding  all  out- 
ward rites  and  forms.  And  yet,  in  spirit  they  were 
not  unlike,  —  More  the  purest  victim  of  the  great 
religious,  and  Vane  the  purest  victim  of  the  great 
civil,  revolution.  As  More  found  his  eulogist  in 
Erasmus,  so  Vane  found  his  in  Milton.  In  different 
ways  both  laid  down  their  lives  out  of  devotion  to 
ideal  truth  ;  both  confessing  the  supreme  obliga- 
tion of  conscience,  both  scorning  expediency  as  a 
rule  of  political  conduct,  both  bowing  before  a  law 
higher  than  any  human  ordinance.  And  still  fur- 
ther might  the  parallel  be  traced  between  the  scholar 
who,  in  his  "  Utopia,"  fondly  depicted  an  ideal 
state,  where  the  end  of  legislation  should  be  to  se- 
cure the  good  of  the  whole,  —  where  social  injustice, 
political  tyranny,  and  religious  intolerance  should 
alike  cease  ;  where  all  should  be  taught  to  read  and 
write  ;  and  where  both  priest  and  magistrate  should 


SIR  HENRY  VANE.  I95 

be  chosen  by  the  people,  —  and  the  statesman  whose 
life  was  devoted  to  the  realization  of  this  ideal  in  a 
free,  a  self-governed,  a  prosperous  commonwealth ; 
who,  in  opposition  to  religious  intolerance  both  in 
the  New  and  in  the  Old  World,  and  in  defiance  of  a 
popular  sentiment  which  decried  him  as  a  visionary 
and  a  fanatic,  unflinchingly  maintained  the  doctrine 
that  religious  opinion  should  under  no  circumstances 
be  restrained  by  the  civil  power. 

And  now,  while  we  watch  Vane  standing  on  the 
scaffold,  his  hands  resting  on  the  rails,  surveying 
with  a  serious  but  composed  countenance  the  surg- 
ing multitude  before  him  and  around  him ;  essaying 
to  speak,  but  rude]y  interrupted  by  the  trumpeters, 
who  were  commanded  to  crowd  about  him  and  blow 
in  his  face  ;  the  very  mob  murmuring  their  discon- 
tent as  the  sheriff  tore  from  his  hand  the  paper 
which  he  began  to  read,  but  himself  maintaining  a 
dignified  composure,  so  that  even  a  Royalist  spec- 
tator declared  "  that  he  died  like  a  prince  ;  "  then 
kneeling  in  prayer,  and  blessing  God,  who  had 
counted  him  worthy  to  suffer  in  this  way,  his  moral 
courage  completely  triumphing  over  the  native  tim- 
orousness  of  his  character,  —  watching  Vane,  I  say, 
in  this  supreme  moment  of  his  fate,  what  verdict 
shall  we  pass  upon  him  ? 

I  refer  not  to  his  personal  traits,  to  his  stainless 
integrity,  his  sincerity  of  purpose,  the  purity  of  his 
private  life,  the  unaffected  piety  which  in  the  darkest 
crisis  of  his  career  was  his  unfailing  comfort  and 
support,  but  what  shall  we  say  of  him  as  a  public 
man  ? 

Was  he,  in  the  words  of  Anthony  Wood,  "the 
Proteus  of  the  times,  a  mere  hotch-potch  of  religions, 


196  SIR  HENRY   VANE. 

chief  ringleader  of  all  the  frantic  sectarians  "  ?  —  a 
man  whose  writings,  the  historian  Hume  declares, 
"  are  absolutely  unintelligible,  with  no  traces  of  elo- 
quence, or  even  of  common  sense  "  ?  Such,  surely, 
is  not  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  studied  his 
various  productions,  writings  pervaded  throughout 
by  a  depth  of  spiritual  insight,  a  simplicity  and  no- 
bleness of  diction,  which  puts  them  on  a  level  with 
the  best  theological  literature  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Even  the  charge  which  Clarendon  brings 
against  him  of  being  a  man  "  above  ordinances," 
when  translated  into  modern  phrase,  means  simply 
that  Vane  regarded  religious  forms  as  means,  not 
ends.  Holding  with  the  apostle  that  the  gospel 
meant  neither  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  but 
a  new  creature,  he  was  equally  removed  from  the 
extreme  which  elevated  the  form  above  the  sub- 
stance, and  the  extreme  which  elevated  the  letter 
above  the  spirit.  He  was  equally  aloof  from  the 
bigotry  of  the  Churchman  and  the  bigotry  of  the 
Puritan.  It  is  not  surprising  that  a  hard-headed 
Scotchman  like  Burnet  should  have  been  puzzled  to 
know  what  his  true  opinions  were. 

Burnet  says  that  Vane  was  what  was  called  a 
Seeker  ;  that  he  waited  for  new  and  clearer  reve- 
lations ;  and  that  he  leaned  to  Origen's  notion  of  a 
universal  salvation.  But  what  more  than  anything 
else  gave  rise  to  the  opinion  that  his  intellect  was 
clouded  and  unsettled  was  his  confident  expectation 
of  the  speedy  return  of  Christ.  The  scaffold  and 
the  axe  mattered  little  to  one  who  could  declare 
with  his  latest  breath  that  in  the  cloud  and  dark- 
ness of  that  hour  he  only  saw  more  clearly  the 
New  Jerusalem. 


S/X  HENRY  VANE.  1 97 

Was  Vane  a  statesman  who  accomplished  noth- 
ing, —  whose  life  was  spent  in  idly  dreaming  of  an 
unattainable  ideal  ?  So  it  might  have  seemed  to 
those  who  saw  him  on  the  scaffold  ;  who  bitterly  re- 
flected how  in  the  whirlwind  of  returning  loyalty 
the  wholesome  reforms  which  he  had  advocated  were 
blown  aside.  True,  that  English  commonwealth, 
which  to  his  mind  was  the  very  perfection  of  a  body 
politic,  had  but  a  short-lived  existence  ;  but  shall 
we  say  that  he  lived  to  no  purpose  when  the  iden- 
tical measures  which  he  advocated  have,  in  the 
course  of  two  hundred  years,  steadily  wrought  them- 
selves into  the  English  constitution  ;  when  his  fun- 
damental maxim,  that  the  end  of  all  government  is 
the  welfare  of  the  governed,  is  to-day  the  accepted 
principle  of  English  politics  ;  when  the  reform  of 
i  epresentation  which  he  pressed  has  "been  carried 
out  in  a  series  of  memorable  enactments ;  when 
the  separation  of  church  and  state,  for  which  he 
contended,  is  at  this  moment  the  next  problem  con- 
fronting English  statesmen  ? 

Shall  we  say  that  he  lived  to  no  purpose  when 
we  remember  that,  in  little  more  than  a  century 
after  his  blood  was  shed,  his  identical  plan  of  a  fun- 
damental constitution,  to  be  drawn  up  by  a  general 
convention  of  discerning  men,  chosen  for  that  pur- 
pose by  the  whole  people,  was  carried  into  effect 
by  the  body  over  which  George  Washington  pre- 
sided, which  framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  ?  We  who  have  demonstrated  that  his  vision 
of  a  republic  where  the  people  are  recognized  as 
the  sole  source  of  power  need  not  be  scouted  as 
an  idle  dream  ;  clothing  it  in  the  Western  world  with 
an  amplitude  and  majesty  which   his  wildest  imagi- 


198  SIR  HENRY   VANE. 

nation  never  pictured  ;  proving  in  the  throes  of  an 
unexampled  civil  strife  that  a  government  resting 
on  popular  consent  is  incomparably  the  strongest 
that  can  exist,  able  to  bear  a  shock  that  would  have 
swept  away  like  chaff  the  proudest  monarchies,  — 
we  who  know  and  have  experienced  all  this,  shall 
we  affirm  that  Vane  accomplished  nothing  by  his 
unflinching  advocacy  of  principles  for  which  his  own 
age  was  not  ripe  ?  Then,  indeed,  must  every  will- 
ing sacrifice  of  hero  or  martyr  be  condemned  as  a 
reckless  and  useless  throwing  away  of  life  ! 

I  grant  that  Vane  was  an  enthusiast  ;  but  society 
can  ill  spare  its  enthusiasts  even  from  the  arena 
of  political  life.  The  great  struggle  between  King 
and  Parliament  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  fruit- 
ful in  spirits  bravely  pitched  :  in  the  front  rank  of 
either  side  were  men  of  consummate  parts ;  yet 
two  stand  out  from  all  the  rest,  Falkland  and  Vane. 
They  were  on  opposite  sides.  They  were  unlike  in 
character :  one  was  learned  and  accomplished, 
delighting  to  make  his  house  a  centre  for  wise  and 
witty  men ;  the  other,  devout  and  spiritual,  gather- 
ing: about  him  such  as  loved  to  commune  with  the 
invisible  powers.  Yet  both  were  worshippers  of  the 
ideal ;  both  yearned  passionately  for  something 
broader  and  nobler  than  they  found  about  them. 
Each  gave  his  life  for  a  lost  cause  :  one  on  the  field 
of  Newbury,  the  other  on  Tower  Hill.  But  now  that 
the  noise  of  the  conflict  has  passed,  men  are  com- 
ing to  see  that  what  these  two  were  in  search  of 
was  the  best  result  of  the  struggle. 


REVIEWS. 


RELIGION    IN    AMERICA.1 
1776-1876. 

The  Revolution  which  a  century  ago  severed  the 
connection  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies 
issued  so  directly  from  political  disputes  that  its 
religious  aspects  have  been  obscured  ;  yet  no  fact 
lies  plainer  on  the  page  of  colonial  history  than  the 
intimate  alliance  of  religious  and  political  ideas, — 
a  fact  which  the  elder  Adams  emphasized  when  he 
cautioned  the  Abbe  Mably  not  to  undertake  the  his- 
tory of  the  War  of  Independence  without  first  mas- 
tering the  church  system  of  New  England.  And  it 
would  form  a  singular  exception  to  the  ordinary  laws 
of  historical  development  if  that  which  is  so  evident 
in  the  causes  of  the  Revolution  could  not  be  traced 
in  its  results.  Those  results  supplied  new  ecclesi- 
astical as  well  as  new  political  conditions,  and  flow- 
ered, at  the  same  time,  in  the  novel  experiments  of 
a  self-governed  state  and  of  a  self-directing  and  self- 
supporting  church.  Nor  should  the  formal  separa- 
tion of  these  two  experiments  betray  us  into  the 
error  of  supposing  that  they  are  essentially  distinct. 
They  have  been  carried  on  together,  by  the  same 
people,  and  during  the  same  period,  and  throughout 
all  this  period  have  had  a  connection  more  close 
and  real  than  will  be  conceded  by  such  as  are  ac- 

1  Published  in  the  North  American  Review,  January,  1876. 


202  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

customed  to  look  only  at  the  superficial  causes  of 
political  and  social  progress.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  whatever  circumstances  tend  to  affect 
the  one  must  ultimately  affect  the  other  also,  and 
that  any  extensive  modification  of  the  religious  sen- 
timent would  ultimately  react  upon  political  opinion. 
An  acute  critic  of  American  society,  not  a  religious 
philosopher  but  a  political  economist,  has  found  in 
our  experience  a  signal  illustration  of  the  principle 
"  that  there  must  be  harmony  between  the  political 
and  religious  schemes  that  are  suited  to  a  people  ;  " 
and  a  later  writer,  the  least  inclined  of  any  historian 
of  civilization  to  lay  stress  on  the  spiritual  forces 
that  shape  society,  has  indorsed  Chevalier's  maxim, 
in  a  striking  passage  which  traces  the  influence  ex- 
erted on  political  opinion  by  religious  creeds.  The 
religion  of  a  people  is,  in  a  profound  sense,  a  part  of 
its  history,  and  results  in  phenomena,  to  which  the 
mere  political  student  cannot  afford  to  shut  his  eyes. 
The  hundred  years  which  we  are  passing  in  review 
have  been  marked  by  sweeping  ecclesiastical  and 
theological  convulsions.  Hardly  had  the  last  royal 
regiment  left  our  shores  when  the  sky  grew  black 
with  signs  of  a  more  far-reaching  revolution,  and  for 
a  time  altar  and  throne  went  down  together.  Since 
that  return  of  chaos  and  old  night,  the  vexed  prob- 
lem which  Hildebrand  and  the  Hohenstauffens  left 
unsolved  has  harassed  every  European  state.  In 
France,  in  Italy,  and  in  Germany  the  struggle  has 
presented  its  most  brilliant  phases.  In  the  South 
the  Pope  has  been  stripped  of  every  vestige  of  a  polit- 
ical dominion  which  long  antedated  that  of  the  proud- 
est royal  dynasty ;  while  in  the  North  a  new  Prot- 
estant empire  has  been  called  into  existence,  which 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  203 

boldly  remits  to  antiquaries  the  traditional  relations 
between  Germany  and  the  Holy  See.  England,  if 
less  powerfully  convulsed,  has  by  no  means  escaped. 
The  repeal  of  the  Test  Act,  Catholic  emancipation, 
the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church,  are  legis- 
lative measures  which  deserve  to  rank  beside  the 
Reform  Bill  and  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws; 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  has  renewed  the  discussion  of 
civil  allegiance  which  Mr.  Pitt  opened  with  the  Irish 
universities  the  very  year  that  our  Federal  Constitu- 
tion went  into  operation.  The  two  greatest  states- 
men whom  this  century  has  produced  have  expended 
their  supreme  energies  on  the  question  which  is,  at 
this  moment,  the  fundamental  question  of  European 
politics.  Nor  have  the  revolutions  of  theological 
opinion  been  less  marked.  The  avowed  atheism  of 
the  Revolution  and  the  undisguised  indifference  of 
the  Empire  were  succeeded  in  France  by  the  ultra- 
montane revival  of  the  Restoration  ;  the  bold  ra- 
tionalism of  Germany  issued  in  the  transcendental 
schools,  and  the  various  modifications  of  German 
theology  and  criticism  ;  the  evangelical  movement 
in  the  English  Church  was  followed  by  the  great 
Tractarian  reaction  ;  while  the  Council  of  the  Vati- 
can, contemptuously  ignoring  the  political  reverses 
of  the  papacy,  proceeded  to  enunciate  dogmas  which 
touch,  in  their  application,  every  state  in  Christen- 
dom. And  while  ecclesiastics  and  statesmen  have 
been  busied  with  these  discussions,  science  has  ad- 
vanced new  theories,  which  threaten  to  wipe  out  the 
lines  of  former  controversies.  In  the  vast  range  of 
investigation  and  argument  thus  disclosed,  the  most 
earnest  and  most  adventurous  thought  of  our  time 
has  found  ample  scope  for  utterance.     It  is  certainly 


204  RELIGION  IN  R  ME  RICA. 

a  matter  of  no  little  interest  to  ascertain  what  part 
we  have  played  in  this  great  drama,  and  how  much 
we  have  contributed  to  the  solution  of  these  perplex- 
ing problems.  From  an  estimate  of  the  mere  intel- 
lectual value  of  our  civilization  such  inquiries  could 
hardly  be  omitted. 

In  a  survey  of  our  religious  progress  covering  so 
long  a  period,  and  presenting  so  many  phases,  of 
course  only  the  more  salient  and  characteristic  feat- 
ures can  be  noted.  No  mention  can  be  made  of 
those  exceptional  manifestations  of  the  religious  sen- 
timent, or  those  reactions  of  individual  opinion, 
which,  however  interesting  in  themselves,  have  left 
no  distinct  mark  on  the  public  mind.  It  is  the  main 
current,  not  the  side  eddies,  that  must  be  considered. 
What  seeds,  now  small  and  despised,  shall  attain 
hereafter  a  vigorous  growth  it  remains  for  time  to 
show.  A  treatment  so  general  is  embarrassed  with 
peculiar  difficulties,  on  account  of  the  unexampled 
diversity  of  religious  phenomena  which  our  history 
exhibits.  To  disentangle  from  this  confused  mass 
any  common  tendencies,  to  evolve  from  this  disso- 
nance any  rhythmic  movement,  may  seem  at  first 
sight  an  unpromising  experiment,  and  one  that  to 
some,  no  doubt,  will  appear  the  less  inviting  from  the 
pervading  unpicturesqueness  of  our  religious  annals. 
The  thrilling  epochs  of  Old  World  history  are  when 
the  cross  and  altar  fill  the  foreground  of  the  picture  ; 
when  the  brilliant  narrative  groups  on  a  single  stage 
all  the  heroic  and  venerable  figures  ;  but  the  huge 
bulk  of  our  American  Christianity  is  broken  into 
many  fragments ;  its  energetic  life  is  poured  through 
various  and  widely  separated  channels  ;  whatever  of 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  205 

romance  gilds  it  belongs  to  its  earliest  youth.  Yet 
neither  the  lack  of  romantic  interest  nor  the  hin- 
drances to  a  satisfactory  analysis  should  deter  any 
one  from  an  honest  attempt  to  measure  the  real  suc- 
cess of  an  experiment  in  which  such  great  and  man- 
ifold issues  are  involved. 

We  shall  follow  the  most  simple  method  if  we  fix 
our  attention,  at  the  outset,  on  the  external  features 
of  our  religious  history  ;  and,  beyond  question,  the 
most  characteristic  of  these  is  the  entire  separation 
that  obtains,  both  in  our  Federal  and  State  systems, 
between   the  ecclesiastical  and  the   civil  province. 
So  heartily  is  this  accepted,  and  so  unhesitatingly  is 
it  maintained,  that  it  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  regarded 
less  as  an  external  feature  than  as  a  fundamental 
maxim  of  our  body  politic.     He  who  should  deny  it 
would  find  it  hard  to  gain  a  hearing,  and  would  be 
fortunate  if  he  escaped  the  reproach  of  holding  an 
unfriendly  attitude    towards    popular    liberty   itself. 
"It  belongs  to  American  liberty,"  says  Lieber,  "to 
separate  entirely  from  the  political  government  the 
institution  which  has  for  its  object  the  support  and 
diffusion  of  religion."     The  broad  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between  the  opinions  of  to-day  and  those  which 
prevailed  a  century  ago  can  nowhere  be  more  dis- 
tinctly traced  than  precisely  at  this  point  ;  and  the 
contrast  that  is  presented  the  more  deserves  atten- 
tion for  the  reason  that  it  has  hardly  been  touched 
upon  with  sufficient  discrimination  even  by  our  best 
historians.     That  in  all  the  colonies,  previous  to  the 
Revolution,  there  existed  a  connection,  more  or  less 
close,  between  religion  and  the  state,  is  a  fact  often 
repeated  and  sufficiently  familiar.     Such  a  connec- 
tion may  be  established  in  two  ways :  negatively,  by 


206  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

means  of  tests  excluding  from  public  office  or  the 
civil  franchise  the  professors  of  a  certain  faith ;  or, 
positively,  by  means  of  legislation  providing  for  re- 
ligious establishments,  or  for  the  support  of  public 
worship.  The  thirteen  colonies  afforded  illustration 
of  all  these  modes.  In  all  there  existed  religious 
tests,  unless  we  regard  as  an  unauthorized  interpo- 
lation a  clause  by  which,  in  the  community  which 
welcomed  the  virtuous  Berkeley,  Montesquieu  and 
Turgot  would  have  been  accounted  aliens.  Even 
Delaware  and  Pennsylvania,  refusing  any  legal  pref- 
erence of  religion,  denied  the  franchise  to  all  who 
did  not  profess  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  Most  of  these 
tests  were  borrowed  from  English  law,  and  were  due 
to  the  exigencies  of  English  politics.  But  through- 
out the  Southern  colonies  the  Church  of  England 
enjoyed  a  legal  recognition.  Into  Georgia,  where 
the  social  influences  that  operated  farther  north 
hardly  found  a  place,  it  was  introduced  by  the  sec- 
ond royal  governor.  Unmindful  of  the  principle 
which  the  wise  foresight  of  Locke  had  sought  to 
fix  in  the  "  Grand  Model,"  South  Carolina  had  taken 
the  first  step  in  the  same  direction  before  the  close 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  North  Carolina  it 
had  found  a  place,  though  with  meagre  results,  early 
in  the  eighteenth.  In  Virginia  it  was  coeval  with 
the  civil  constitution  ;  and  in  Maryland,  originally 
founded  on  the  principle  of  complete  toleration,  it 
had  so  far  triumphed  that,  in  the  colony  which  Cal- 
vert had  planted,  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
could  no  longer  be  celebrated.  And  in  New  Jersey 
and  New  York,  where  the  Church  was  not  estab- 
lished, it  basked  in  the  sunshine  of  an  official  coun- 
tenance that  secured  it  a  hardly  inferior  advantage. 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  207 

Yet  all  this  was  but  an  attempt  to  transplant  to  the 
New  World  institutions  which  in  the  Old  were  al- 
ready smitten  with  decay.  The  Establishment  re- 
mained a  sickly  exotic,  striking  no  deep  roots  into 
the  soil,  and  it  almost  withered  away  when  scorched 
by  the  fervent  heat  of  the  Revolutionary  epoch. 

The  statement  has  been  repeated  by  writers  who 
should  be  better  informed  that  before  the  Revo- 
lution the  Congregational  church  system  was  es- 
tablished after  the  same  plan  in  the  colonies  of 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts.  But  in  these  two 
colonies  there  was  not  only  no  religious  establish- 
ment, but  even  the  bare  suggestion  of  one  had  drawn 
forth  an  energetic  protest.  When  we  study  their 
institutions  we  encounter  an  experiment  the  novel 
and  unique  features  of  which  have  been  too  much 
overlooked.  It  was  not  even  a  reproduction,  on 
these  shores,  of  the  scheme  of  Calvin,  —  at  least 
as  that  scheme  was  expounded  by  his  disciple  Cart- 
wright,  and  indorsed  by  the  English  Presbyterians  ; 
for  that  claimed  for  the  ecclesiastical  a  complete 
independence  of  the  civil  power.  From  the  decrees 
of  the  clergy  there  was  no  appeal.  The  church  was 
a  self-subsisting  spiritual  republic  ;  and  the  prov- 
ince of  the  civil  ruler  was  simply  to  see  that  her 
discipline  was  carried  out.  According  to  this  theory, 
church  and  state  were  essentially  distinct,  and  might 
come  into  angry  collision.  But  the  plan  devised  by 
the  founders  of  Massachusetts  aimed  at  a  blend- 
ing of  the  two.  In  their  view,  "the  order  of  the 
churches  and  of  the  commonwealth"  formed  a  com- 
plete and  harmonious  whole.  It  was  a  prophecy  of 
the  new  heavens  and  of  the  new  earth.  Between 
church  and  state  there  could  exist  no  antagonism, 


208  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

when  both  were  alike  but  shapes  in  which  one  in- 
forming spirit  masked  itself.  It  is  true  that  long 
before  the  Revolution  this  singular  system  had 
passed  away.  By  the  charter  of  William  and  Mary 
toleration  had  been  extended  to  all  Protestant  creeds, 
and  the  right  of  suffrage  was  no  longer  restricted 
to  church  members.  But  the  ideas  out  of  which 
this  experiment  had  grown  still  survived  in  a  pro- 
found conviction  of  the  indissoluble  alliance  be- 
tween the  spiritual  and  civil  order  ;  and  the  staunch 
devotion  of  the  colony  to  her  traditions  proved  itself 
in  an  enactment  requiring  every  town  to  support  a 
religious  teacher.  This  legislation  rested  on  the 
unwavering  conviction  that  religion  was  the  founda- 
tion of  society,  and  that  the  furtherance  of  religion 
was  one  of  the  prime  functions  of  the  body  politic. 
Before  we  flout  the  legislators  of  Massachusetts  for 
being  behind  the  age,  we  should  ascertain  precisely 
what  they  sought  to  do.  They  were  not  emptying 
into  the  cup  of  colonial  liberty  the  dregs  of  an  old 
experiment.  The  support  of  religion,  not  the  en- 
dowment of  any  specific  church  establishment,  was 
what  they  had  in  mind.  No  doubt  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  population  were  attached  to  the 
same  form  of  faith,  yet  the  statute  left  it  open  for 
each  town  to  decide  what  ecclesiastical  order  it 
would  adopt.  An  arrangement  more  liberal  in  prin- 
ciple never  was  devised.  The  theory  thus  applied 
to  churches  was  precisely  the  same  that  was  ap- 
plied to  schools.  In  this  respect  the  minister  and 
the  school-master  stood  on  exactly  the  same  footing. 
Every  argument  that  could  be  adduced  in  favor  of 
giving  public  support  to  one  could  be  adduced  in 
favor  of  giving  the  same  support  to  the  other  also, 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  209 

Religion  and  education  were  alike  essential  to  the 
welfare  of  the  state,  and  it  was  equally  the  concern 
of  the  state  to  see  that  both  should  flourish.  When 
the  number  of  dissenters  from  the  early  faith  had 
sufficiently  increased,  the  law  was  modified  so  as  to 
allow  each  separate  congregation  to  claim  its  propor- 
tion of  the  ecclesiastical  tax  for  the  support  of  a 
clergyman  of  its  own  persuasion.  It  contemplated 
no  exclusive  privilege. 

The  conservative  character  of  our  Revolution  was 
shown  in  nothing  more  distinctly  than  in  the  delib- 
erate   manner  in  which,    under    the    new   political 
order,  the  several  States  proceeded  to  modify   the 
old  relations  between  religion  and  the  civil  power. 
Of    necessity,  the    formal    church    establishments 
which  existed  at  the  South,  identified  as  they  were 
both  in  religion  and  form  with  a  foreign  and  hostile 
power,  at  once  fell  to  pieces.     But  it  is  a  somewhat 
rhetorical  exaggeration  of  the  fact  when  our  fore- 
most historian    tells  us    "  that   from    the   rivers  of 
Maine    and    the    hills  of    New   Hampshire   to  the 
mountain  valleys  of  Tennessee  and  the  borders  of 
Georgia,  one  voice  called  to   the  other   that  there 
should  be  no  connection  of  church  and  state."     On 
the  contrary,  in  every  one  of  the  new  constitutions 
framed  under  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  with 
the   single  exception   of  that  of   New  York,  some 
connection  of  church  and  state  was  expressly  recog- 
nized.    Many  of  the  restrictions  that  were  retained 
may  be  properly  described  as  "  shreds   of  an  old 
system"    or  "incidental  reminiscences    of    ancient 
usages."      Such  especially   were  the  tests,    having 
their  origin  not  so  much  in  religious  as  in  political 
antagonisms,  which  denied  the  franchise  to  Roman 
14 


2IO  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

Catholics.  These  purely  negative  provisions,  which 
in  this  country  had  little  meaning,  and  were  readily 
eliminated,  were  of  a  wholly  different  nature  from 
positive  enactments  in  which  some  of  the  States  em- 
bodied the  conviction  that  religion  lay  at  the  foun- 
dation of  civil  government.  Thus,  into  the  Consti- 
tution of  Maryland,  adopted  the  very  year  in  which 
independence  was  declared,  a  provision  was  inserted 
making  belief  in  the  Christian  religion  the  condi- 
tion of  holding  any  public  office.  Massachusetts, 
four  years  later,  retained  a  similar  condition.  In 
Pennsylvania  every  member  of  the  Legislature  was 
required  to  avow  his  belief  in  God  and  in  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Delaware 
went  still  further,  and  demanded  of  every  public 
officer  a  declaration  of  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  The  two  Carolinas  and  Georgia  required 
of  every  public  functionary  that  he  should  profess 
the  Protestant  religion.  Yet  it  is  evident  that  in 
all  these  provisions  the  end  in  view  was  not  the  ex- 
clusion of  any  particular  sect  from  the  civil  fran- 
chise, but  the  assertion  of  the  religious  basis  of 
civil  government.  In  Maryland  and  in  South  Caro- 
lina the  public  support  of  religion  was  still  recog- 
nized as  a  duty  of  the  State. 

This  conviction,  however,  naturally  found  its  most 
emphatic  assertion  in  New  England,  where  the  pub- 
lic support  of  religion  was  most  strongly  intrenched 
in  popular  tradition.  As  Connecticut  continued 
under  her  colonial  charter,  without  adopting  a  con- 
stitution, she  escaped  for  the  time  any  discussion 
of  the  question  ;  but  in  Massachusetts  it  had  al- 
ready provoked  a  bitter  controversy,  and  in  the  de- 
bates which  preceded  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  211 

tion  of  1780  it  became  the  engrossing  topic.  The 
third  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  forming  part 
of  the  Constitution,  empowered  the  Legislature  to 
make  suitable  provision  "for  the  support  and  main- 
tenance of  public  Protestant  teachers  of  piety,  re- 
ligion, and  morality."  Against  the  whole  principle 
of  a  public  support  of  religion  the  Baptists  had 
long  been  vehemently  protesting.  They  had  felt 
especially  aggrieved  by  a  law,  passed  in  1753,  which 
enacted  that  no  person  should  be  reckoned  of  their 
persuasion  whose  name  was  not  included  in  a  list, 
the  correctness  of  which  must  be  attested  by  three 
Baptist  churches.  By  a  subsequent  statute  this 
list  was  required  to  be  annually  exhibited  to  the 
assessors  of  each  town.  Repeated  complaints  were 
made  of  grievous  persecutions,  and  the  year  before 
the  first  blood  of  the  Revolution  was  shed  at  Lex- 
ington, no  less  than  eighteen  members  of  a  Bap- 
tist church  were  imprisoned  in  Northampton  jail  for 
refusing  to  pay  ministerial  rates.  Remonstrances 
were  laid  before  members  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, then  in  session  at  Philadelphia,  and  before 
the  Massachusetts  Congress  at  Cambridge.  At  the 
Philadelphia  conference,  which  was  simply  an  in- 
formal meeting  of  certain  members  of  the  Con- 
gress, Samuel  Adams  intimated  "that  the  com- 
plaints came  from  enthusiasts  who  made  it  a  merit 
to  suffer  persecution  ;  "  while  John  Adams  declared 
"  that  a  change  in  the  solar  system  might  be  ex- 
pected as  soon  as  a  change  in  the  ecclesiastical 
system  of  Massachusetts."  The  opinions  of  the 
most  serious  supporters  of  the  law  will  be  found 
reflected  in  the  annual  Election  sermons  of  the 
period.     In   1770,  Samuel  Clark,  of  Cambridge,  de- 


212  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

clares  "  that  in  a  flourishing  and  respectable  civil 
state  the  worship  of  God  must  be  maintained."  In 
1776,  Samuel  West,  of  Dartmouth,  says  that  laws 
for  "  maintaining  public  worship  and  decently  sup- 
porting the  teachers  of  religion"  are  "absolutely 
necessary  for  the  well-being  of  society."  "  The  re 
straints  of  religion  would  be  broken  down,"  said 
Phillips  Payson,  of  Chelsea,  in  1778,  "  by  leaving  the 
subject  of  public  worship  to  the  humors  of  the  mul- 
titude." Rulers,  affirmed  Simeon  Howard,  of  Bos- 
ton, in  1780,  should  have  power  to  encourage  relig- 
ion, "  not  only  by  their  example,  but  by  their  au- 
thority ;  "  power  not  only  "  to  punish  profaneness 
and  impiety,"  but  to  "  provide  for  the  institution 
and  support  of  the  public  worship  of  God."  A  gov- 
ernment which  should  neglect  this  would  be  guilty 
of  "  a  daring  affront  to  Heaven."  These  facts  are 
sufficient  to  show  that,  while  no  desire  existed  with 
the  great  majority  of  the  American  people  to  retain 
religious  establishments,  the  doctrine  that  the  civil 
and  the  spiritual  order  were  essentially  related  still 
had  a  powerful  hold  on  the  public  conscience.  Nor 
should  this  opinion  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  any 
special  ecclesiastical  prejudice.  On  the  contrary, 
it  received  its  most  impressive  statement  from  lay- 
men. Thus,  when  Chief  Justice  Parsons,  who  was 
not  at  the  time  a  member  of  any  church,  entered 
upon  his  official  career,  he  took  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity to  express,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  his 
conviction  of  the  necessity  of  a  public  support  of 
religious  institutions  ;  and,  still  later,  Judge  Story 
declared  that  "it  yet  remained  a  problem  to  be 
solved  in  human  affairs  whether  any  free  govern- 
ment can  be  permanent  where  the  public  worship 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  21 3 

of  God  and  the  support  of   religion  constitute  no 
part  of  the  policy  or  duty  of  the  state." 

It  is  only  when  we  call  to  mind  facts  like  these 
that  we  can  appreciate  the  full  extent  of  the  revo- 
lution in  public  sentiment  which  the  past  century 
has  witnessed.  To  this  result  three  wholly  distinct 
causes  have  contributed.  The  first  of  these  was  the 
number  of  religious  organizations,  widely  differing 
in  doctrine  and  worship,  which  rendered  any  public 
support  of  religion  almost  impracticable,  although 
many  of  these  bodies  regarded  such  support  without 
disfavor.  A  second  cause  was  the  conscientious 
objection  of  certain  sects  to  any  recognition  of  re- 
ligion by  the  civil  power.  The  third  and  most  de- 
cisive cause  was  the  rise  of  the  secular  theory  of  the 
state,  a  part  of  the  great  political  development  of 
modern  times.  Those  who  defended  this  theory  did 
not  profess,  like  the  Baptists,  to  be  governed  by  any 
religious  scruples,  but  advanced  the  broad  doctrine 
that  state  and  church  were  inherently  and  essentially 
distinct.  The  great  representative  of  this  view  was 
Mr.  Jefferson,  and  it  found  its  first  expression  in  the 
famous  Virginia  act  of  1785,  which,  in  after  years, 
he  looked  back  upon  as  the  most  creditable  achieve- 
ment of  his  life.  The  phraseology  of  this  act  re- 
flects no  less  distinctly  than  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence "the  semi-juridical,  semi-popular  opin- 
ions which  were  fashionable  in  France,"  and  marks 
a  decisive  epoch  in  the  development  of  American 
political  theories.  The  change  is  illustrated  in  the 
two  most  famous  of  our  political  documents.  When 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  drawn  up  it 
was  still  deemed  proper  to  insert  a  solemn  appeal  to 
the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  world,  and  an  expression 


214  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

of  reliance  upon  the  protection  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence ;  but  when  the  Federal  Constitution  was 
framed,  a  transaction  surely  not  less  vitally  related 
to  the  well-being  of  the  nation,  all  recognition  of  a 
higher  than  secular  authority  was  carefully  excluded, 
the  sole  allusion  to  religion  being  the  provision  that 
"  no  religious  tests  should  ever  be  required  as  a  qual- 
ification for  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the 
United  States."  The  first  amendment  provided, 
further,  that  "  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respect- 
ing an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof."  The  Federal  Constitution 
imposed  no  restriction  upon  the  religious  legislation 
of  the  States,  and  did  not  directly  affect  their  action, 
yet  its  thoroughly  secular  character  came  more  and 
more  to  stamp  itself  upon  them,  till  at  length  all 
trace  of  the  former  connection  between  church  and 
state  had  disappeared.  Laws  for  the  support  of 
public  worship  lingered  in  Connecticut  till  1816,  and 
in  Massachusetts  till  1833,  and  religious  tests  in  sev- 
eral States  for  a  few  years  longer.  But  public 
opinion,  from  which  all  laws  proceed,  at  length  de- 
cided that  the  State,  in  its  essence,  was  a  "  purely 
political  organism."  Provisions  regulating  the  pub- 
lic establishment  of  religion,  requiring  the  compul- 
sory support  of  religious  teachers,  enforcing  attend- 
ance upon  public  worship,  restraining  the  free  exer- 
cise of  religious  functions  or  the  free  expression  of 
religious  belief,  have  been  expunged  from  the  stat- 
ute-book of  every  State.  Not  only  does  the  maxim 
universally  prevail  that  no  particular  form  of  re- 
ligion should  receive  the  countenance  of  law,  but  the 
far  more  comprehensive  principle  that  the  spiritual 
and   secular  provinces  are  essentially  distinct.     Al- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  21 5 

though  our  practice  has  not  always  been  consistent 
with  this  maxim,  yet  in  the  main  we  have  come  to 
accept  a  secular  theory  of  government.  The  effect 
of  this  upon  our  political  life  would  furnish  an  invit- 
ing topic  for  discussion,  but  we  are  here  concerned 
only  with  its  bearings  upon  our  religious  progress. 
There  is  no  necessary  connection  between  sepa- 
ration of  church  and  state,  and  the  subdivision  of  the 
former  into  a  variety  of  independent  sects.  On 
the  contrary,  the  first  three  centuries  of  the  Chris- 
tian era  show  that  a  catholic  and  a  self-sustaining 
Christianity  are  not  incompatible.  Still,  the  unique 
circumstances  which  shaped  the  settlement  of  the 
thirteen  colonies,  collecting  on  these  shores  the  rep- 
resentatives of  so  many  nationalities,  at  the  crisis 
when  their  religious  convictions  were  stimulated  to 
the  highest  pitch,  involved  contrasts  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal and  theological  opinion  which  the  perfect  legal 
equality  subsequently  established  powerfully  height- 
ened. That  tendency  to  carry  conscientious  differ- 
ences to  the  point  of  separation,  which  Luther  and 
his  compeers  bequeathed  as  a  legacy  to  modern 
Christendom,  was  freed  in  this  country  from  the  re- 
straints which  held  it  partially  in  check  in  every 
Protestant  state  of  Europe.  The  German  elector, 
the  Dutch  burgomaster,  the  English  king,  however 
they  differed  on  other  points,  were  all  agreed  in 
giving  legal  preference  to  some  particular  form  of 
faith.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  Protestant  sects 
stood  on  an  equal  footing,  and  the  national  result 
was  a  variety  of  religious  organizations  unexampled 
hi  the  Old  World.  This  result  had  already  shown 
itself  before  the  Revolution  ;  and  Dr.  Gordon,  the 
future  historian  of  the  war,  tells  us  how  much  he 


2l6  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

was  edified  when  he  landed  at  Philadelphia,  in  1770, 
by  the  spectacle  of  "  Papists,  Episcopalians,  Mo- 
ravians, Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Methodists,  and  Quak- 
ers passing  each  other  peacefully  and  in  good  tem- 
per on  the  Sabbath,  after  having  broken  up  their 
respective  assemblies."  What  the  good  doctor  saw 
that  Sunday  morning  was  a  panorama  of  our  future 
religious  history ;  for  the  annals  of  religion  in  this 
country  are  the  annals  not  of  one  great  national 
church,  but  of  many  separate  communions  ;  and  in 
no  other  way  can  we  so  clearly  present  to  ourselves 
the  external  features,  at  least,  of  our  religious  prog- 
ress as  by  placing  in  contrast  the  leading  religious 
denominations  as  they  existed  a  century  ago  and  as 
they  exist  to-day.  Such  general  comparisons  do 
not,  of  course,  disclose  the  more  subtile  modifica- 
tions of  religious  life,  but  they  help  us  to  estimate 
the  leading  drift.  And  although  it  has  come  to  be 
the  fashion,  with  some,  to  speak  slightingly  of  the 
"  popular  religions,"  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
opinions  are  less  significant  simply  because  num- 
bers have  embraced  them. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  the  Congre- 
gationalists,  although  confined  mainly  to  New  Eng- 
land, formed  by  far  the  most  numerous  and  influ- 
ential body.  As  the  total  population  of  the  country 
was  still  a  matter  of  conjecture,  religious  statistics 
must,  of  course,  be  accepted  with  allowance ;  yet, 
according  to  the  most  careful  estimate,  the  Congre- 
gationalists  at  this  time  did  not  possess  less  than 
seven  hundred  churches.  The  number  of  clergy 
was  rather  less.  But  it  was  not  in  numbers  simply 
that  the  great  strength  of  the  body  lay.  Unlike  any 
other  ecclesiastical  organization  then  existing  in  the 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  2  1 7 

country,  the  Congregational  churches  were  a  vigor- 
ous native  growth.  Their  distinctive  polity,  origi- 
nally a  part  of  the  civil  frame-work,  was  still  linked 
with  the  same  traditions.  Hence  resulted  the  im- 
portant circumstance  that  they  had  never  been  a 
dissenting  body,  and  had  never  felt  that  galling 
sense  of  inferiority  which  is  provoked  by  comparison 
with  more  favored  rivals.  From  the  beginning  they 
had  been  distinguished  for  conscious  independence 
and  proud  self-respect.  They  had  been  sometimes 
harsh  in  their  bearing  towards  others  ;  but  they 
had  never  themselves  been  welded  together  by  any 
common  suffering  for  their  distinctive  ecclesiastical 
discipline.  The  first  generation  of  their  clergy  was 
renowned  for  learning,  and  a  learned  ministry  had 
always  been  their  pride  and  boast.  No  pains  were 
spared  to  save  the  pulpit  from  the  intrusion  of  un- 
worthy or  unbecoming  occupants.  So  far  was  this 
feeling  carried  that  in  Connecticut  a  law  was  passed, 
at  a  time  when  the  excitement  which  attended  the 
Great  Awakening  threatened  to  throw  off  whole- 
some restraints,  providing  that  no  man  should  be 
entitled  to  recognition  as  a  clergyman  "who  was 
not  a  graduate  of  Yale  or  Harvard,  or  of  some  for- 
eign university."  While  the  organization  of  the 
churches  trenched  on  extreme  democracy,  and,  in 
theory,  the  line  between  clergyman  and  layman 
was  almost  obliterated,  in  fact  the  clerical  position 
was  one  of  almost  unrivaled  authority  and  influence. 
Though  possessing  no  immunities,  and  connected 
by  no  official  tie,  they  formed  a  distinct  order  and 
enjoyed  a  social  prestige  such  as  was  accorded  only 
to  the  most  considerable  members  of  the  commu- 
nity.    The   reverential    regard    in  which    the    New 


2l8  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

England  minister  of  the  last  century  was  held  has 
nowhere  been  so  vividly  depicted  as  by  the  late 
President  Quincy,  whose  length  of  honored  days  al- 
most linked  the  extreme  terms  of  the  period  passing 
under  our  review.  The  scene  is  Andover,  Mass., 
and  the  time  a  Sunday  morning  :  — 

"  The  whole  space  before  the  meeting-house  was  filled 
with  a  waiting,  respectful,  and  expecting  multitude.  At 
the  moment  of  service  the  pastor  issued  from  his  man- 
sion, with  Bible  and  manuscript  sermon  under  his  arm, 
with  his  wife  leaning  on  one  arm,  flanked  by  his  negro 
man  on  his  side,  as  his  wife  was  by  her  negro  woman  ; 
the  little  negroes  being  distributed,  according  to  their 
sex,  by  the  side  of  their  respective  parents.  Then  fol- 
lowed every  other  member  of  the  family  according  to  age 
and  rank,  making  often,  with  family  visitants,  somewhat 
of  a  formidable  procession.  As  soon  as  it  appeared  the 
congregation,  as  if  led  by  one  spirit,  began  to  move  to- 
wards the  door  of  the  church  ;  and,  before  the  proces- 
sion reached  it,  all  were  in  their  places.  As  soon  as  the 
pastor  entered,  the  whole  congregation  rose  and  stood 
until  he  was  in  the  pulpit  and  his  family  were  seated. 
At  the  close  of  the  service  the  congregation  stood  until 
he  and  his  family  had  left  the  church.  Forenoon  and 
afternoon  the  same  course  of  proceeding  was  had." 

Not  every  country  parson,  of  course,  lived  in  the 
style  of  the  Rev.  Jonathan  French,  but  all  were 
treated  with  the  same  deferential  homage.  This 
illustration  of  the  social  position  of  the  New  Eng- 
land clergyman  is  not  simply  a  curious  picture  of 
the  manners  of  the  period,  but  furnishes  an  impor- 
tant clew  to  some  of  the  religious  changes  afterwards 
witnessed.  The  clergy  formed  an  extremely  aristo- 
cratic class,  and  it  was  hardly  less  their  social  emi- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  219 

nence  than  their  speculative  teachings  which  ulti- 
mately arrayed  against  them  a  portion  of  the  popu- 
lation. 

Beneath  the  apparent  unity  of  the  Congregational 
body  it  was  true  that  silent  modifications  were 
going  on.  The  austere  Puritanism  of  an  earlier 
epoch  had  "  smoothed  its  wrinkled  front."  A  taste 
for  amusements  had  been  introduced  on  which  an 
earlier  generation  would  have  frowned.  Thus,  in 
Whitefield's  time,  "  mixed  dancing  was  very  com- 
mon in  New  England."  Even  the  absence  of  the 
theatre,  on  which  the  law  still  frowned,  was  not  an 
unmitigated  evil  ;  for  a  lively  French  chaplain,  who 
was  in  Boston  near  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  assures  us  that  "  piety  was  not  the  only  mo- 
tive that  brought  the  American  ladies  in  crowds  to 
the  various  places  of  worship.  Deprived  of  all  shows 
and  public  diversions,  the  church  is  the  grand  thea- 
tre where  they  attend  to  display  their  extravagance 
and  finery.  There  they  come  dressed  off  in  silks, 
and  overshadowed  with  a  profusion  of  the  finest 
flowers."  With  these  social  innovations  were  dis- 
seminated new  modes  of  thought.  There  was  no 
avowed  antagonism  to  the  past,  yet  there  were  not 
wanting  many  indications  that  the  sway  of  old  ideas 
was  weakened.  The  religious  revival,  which  had 
swept  through  the  churches  like  a  whirlwind,  divided 
the  New  England  clergy  into  two  parties,  who  al- 
ready eyed  each  other  with  mutual  distrust.  In 
the  country  districts  Wigglesworth's  "  Day  of 
Doom  "  was,  perhaps,  "taught  with  the  Catechism," 
for  half  a  century  ago  there  were  many  living  who 
could  recite  from  memory  the  doleful  stanzas  in 
which  the  New  England  Dante  makes  reprobate  in- 


220        •  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

fants  argue  with  the  Almighty  respecting  the  diffi- 
cult question  of  Adam's  federal  headship ;  but  in 
the  towns,  especially  of  Eastern  Massachusetts,  the 
bard  whom  Mather  so  much  admired  was  no  longer 
cherished  as  a  "  sweet  singer."  Had  not  the  dis- 
putes with  the  mother  country  turned  the  minds  of 
men  in  a  different  direction  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
the  controversy  which  rent  the  New  England 
churches  asunder  might  have  been  precipitated  half 
a  century  earlier.  But  the  Stamp  Act  totally  eclipsed 
the  Five  Points  of  Calvinism.  Mayhew,  of  the  West 
Church,  the  recognized  chief  of  the  liberal  party 
after  1761,  "threw  all  the  might  of  his  great  fame 
into  the  scale  of  his  country."  Chauncy  succeeded 
him  as  a  leader  of  popular  opinion,  and,  like  May- 
hew,  turned  wholly  from  theology  to  politics.  Nor 
in  doing  this  did  they  turn  to  an  unfamiliar  or  un- 
congenial field.  The  relation  originally  existing  be- 
tween religion  and  the  state  had  always  disposed 
the  New  England  clergy  to  hold  political  studies  in 
the  highest  estimate.  Refusing  to  regard  human 
life  as  separated  into  two  distinct  spheres  of  action, 
they  believed  that  God  could  be  glorified  in  the  per- 
formance of  civil  duties,  and  consistently  held  their 
town-meetings  in  the  same  house  in  which  they  paid 
Him  their  public  vows.  Locke  and  Sidney  were 
hardly  less  read  than  Calvin  and  Owen.  In  1766  we 
find  Hollis  writing  :  "  More  books,  especially  on  gov- 
ernment, are  going  to  New  England."  This  marked 
predilection  of  the  New  England  clergy  for  political 
discussion  was  also  a  circumstance  which  had  an 
important  bearing  on  their  fortunes  in  later  years. 
Next  in  numbers  to  the  Congregationalists  stood 
the   Baptists,  who  were  supposed  to  have,  at   this 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  221 

time,  about  three  hundred  and  eighty  churches. 
This  numerical  strength  was,  however,  less  real 
than  apparent,  since  most  of  these  organizations 
were  insignificant  in  size  and  influence.  The  Bap- 
tists were  not  confined  to  New  England,  but  were 
scattered  through  the  colonies,  and  had  become  es- 
pecially numerous  in  Virginia.  The  story  has  often 
been  repeated  that  it  was  from  personal  observation 
of  the  working  of  a  small  Baptist  church,  not  far 
from  his  residence,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  was  first  im- 
pressed with  the  peculiar  advantages  of  direct  dem- 
ocratic government.  But,  notwithstanding  their 
numbers,  the  Baptists,  both  in  New  England  and 
the  South,  were  held  in  great  disfavor.  Originally 
bringing  to  this  country  a  name  identified  with  the 
worst  excesses  of  the  Reformation,  and  opposing 
themselves  with  conscientious  pertinacity  to  long- 
established  ecclesiastical  and  political  usages,  they 
had  been  made  to  feel  repeatedly  the  arm  of  civil 
power.  In  Massachusetts  they  had  succeeded,  af- 
ter a  long  struggle,  in  winning  a  tardy  recognition 
of  their  claims,  but  under  conditions  which  had 
added  to  their  exasperation.  The  slender  impor- 
tance of  the  Baptists  as  a  body,  even  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Revolution,  is  plainly  enough  evinced 
in  the  contemptuous  treatment  which  they  received 
at  the  hands  of  the  Massachusetts  delegation  to  the 
Continental  Congress.  Manning,  who  was  one  of 
their  leaders,  speaks  of  them  as  "  despised  and  op- 
pressed." They  were  even  accused  of  disloyalty  to 
the  popular  cause.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  they 
steadily  increased.  Two  distinct  causes  contributed 
to  this  growth.  Before  all  else  the  Baptists  had 
'.nsisted  on  a  personal  experience  of  religion  as  the 


222  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

absolute   condition   of  admission   to    the    Christian 
church.      But   this  was  precisely  the   doctrine   on 
which  the   leaders    of    the    Great    Awakening  had 
laid  such  stress.     The  great  Northampton  contro- 
versy had  turned  on  this  very  point.     The  inevita- 
ble effect  was  not  only  to  direct  increased  attention 
to  the  tenets  of  the  Baptists,  but  also  to  carry  over 
to  their  ranks  the  numerous  congregations  of  Sep- 
aratists which  had  been  called  into  existence  by  the 
conservatism  of  the  Congregational  churches.    Back- 
us,  the  faithful  historian  of  the  Baptists,  was  one 
of  this  description.     But,  besides  this,  there  was  an- 
other and  perhaps  more  potent  reason.     Religious 
changes  are  rarely  due  to  the  exclusive  influence  of 
relio-ious  causes.     A  distinctive  characteristic  of  the 
Baptists  was   the  energy  with   which   they  extolled 
the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  and  advocated  an  unlearned 
ministry.     On  this  latter  point,  as  we  have  already 
seen,    the    Congregationalists    took    high    ground. 
Even  Edwards,  the  most  powerful  promoter  of  the 
revival,  would  not  allow  that  a  man   should   enter 
the  pulpit  "who  had  had  no  education  at  college." 
Against  what  seemed  to  them  an  unrighteous  prej- 
udice in  favor  of  "  the  original  tongues,"  both  Sep- 
aratists and  Baptists  strenuously  maintained  "  that 
every  brother  that  is  qualified  by  God  has  a  right 
to    preach    according   to    the    measure    of    faith." 
"  Lowly  preaching "  became   their   favorite  watch- 
word, and  it  marked  the  beginning  of  a  popular  ten- 
dency destined  to  make  itself  deeply  felt  on  the  re- 
ligious institutions  of  New  England.     The  Baptists 
not  only  gained  a  controlling  influence  with  a  de- 
vout but  humble  class  who  had  little  appetite  for 
the  elaborate  discussions  of  the  Congregational  di- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  223 

vines,  but  they  were  powerfully  helped  by  the  prej- 
udice which  exists  in  every  community  against  the 
exclusiveness  of  superior  culture.  The  rapid  growth 
of  the  Baptists  was,  in  large  part,  a  democratic  pro- 
test ;  and  it  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  even  during 
the  war  their  numbers  steadily  augmented. 

Third  in  numerical  importance  was  the  religious 
organization  at  that  time  known  as  "  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  colonies."  Out  of  New  England 
it  included  a  majority  of  those  whose  wealth  or  so- 
cial consideration  gave  them  influence  in  the  com- 
munity. It  was  the  oldest  religious  body  in  the 
colonies  ;  its  impressive  liturgy  was  read  at  James- 
town seven  years  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  at 
Plymouth.  In  all  the  Southern  colonies  it  had  on 
its  side  the  support  of  law,  and  everywhere  out  of 
New  England  the  powerful  countenance  of  official 
favor.  But  neither  years,  nor  social  consideration, 
nor  legal  support  had  secured  for  it  a  hardy  growth. 
Even  in  the  colonies  where  it  was  most  firmly 
planted,  its  clergy  were  dependent  for  ordination  on 
the  mother  country,  and  in  New  England  both  for 
ordination  and  maintenance.  In  New  England  they 
remained  to  the  last  hardly  more  than  missionaries 
There  existed  a  wide-spread  suspicion  that  in  some 
way  they  were  rendered  subservient  to  the  political 
designs  of  the  British  government.  The  scheme  of 
erecting  an  Episcopate  over  the  colonies  contrib- 
uted, Mr.  Adams  tells  us,  as  much  as  any  other 
cause,  "  to  close  thinking  on  the  constitutional  au- 
thority of  Parliament."  Nor  was  political  prejudice, 
by  any  means,  the  only  thing  that  had  impaired  its 
influence.  In  Maryland  and  Virginia,  where  its 
strength  was  greatest,  the  careless  lives  of  the  clergy 


224  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

had  alienated  numbers  of  those  who  were  sincerely 
attached  to  its  forms.  Before  any  political  antago- 
nisms had  been  excited,  "  the  church  was  becoming 
more  and  more  unpopular,  because  it  was  not  con- 
sidered as  promoting  piety."  Jonathan  Boucher, 
a  clergyman  of  much  intelligence,  long  settled  in 
Virginia,  whose  sermons  throw  a  clear  light  both 
upon  the  political  and  religious  issues  of  the  period, 
frankly  confesses,  that  "whatever  might  be  the  case 
with  the  people  of  the  north,  those  of  the  middle 
and  southern  provinces  were  certainly  not  remark- 
able for  taking  much  interest  in  the  concerns  of  re- 
ligion." After  the  overthrow  of  the  establishment,  a 
considerable  proportion  of  the  Virginia  clergy  "  con- 
tinued to  enjoy  the  glebes,  without  performing  a 
single  act  of  sacred  duty."  It  was  estimated  that 
at  least  two  thirds  of  the  population  of  that  colony 
had  attached  themselves  to  other  religious  bodies. 
The  Revolution  bore,  of  necessity,  on  this  church 
with  crushing  weight.  It  was  "  reduced  almost  to 
annihilation  ;  "  many  despaired  "  as  to  the  perpetu- 
ating of  the  communion  otherwise  than  in  connec- 
tion with  an  establishment."  When  the  struggle 
for  independence  began,  the  clergy,  with  a  few  not- 
able exceptions,  were  hostile  or  lukewarm.  Their 
conduct  was  conscientious,  but  it  was  not  the  less 
fatal  to  their  popular  influence.  At  the  close  of  the 
war  many  entertained  scruples  about  taking  the 
oath  of  allegiance  required  in  some  of  the  States, 
while  others  declined  to  conduct  public  worship  on 
account  of  their  canonical  obligation  to  use  the  un- 
abridged liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England.  Doubts 
were  even  expressed  by  some  of  the  laity  as  to  the 
desirableness  of  retaining  the  Episcox)  J  office.     In 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  225 

Virginia,  where  there  was  no  prejudice  against  the 
ecclesiastical  constitution  of  the  church,  Patrick 
Henry  had  "  hurled  the  hot  thunderbolts  of  his 
wrath  against  the  tithe-gathering  clergy  ; "  in  New 
England,  where  it  stood  opposed  to  local  traditions, 
"  the  breath  of  popular  sentiment  set  so  strongly 
against  it  that  its  continuance  was  almost  as  preca- 
rious as  that  of  a  newly  transplanted  tree  amidst 
the  sweepings  of  the  whirlwinds."  Even  in  Penn- 
sylvania, where  neither  of  the  influences  just  re- 
ferred to  operated,  Dr.  White  "  was,  for  some  time, 
the  only  clergyman." 

About  equal  to  the  Church  of  England  in  num- 
ber of  congregations,  though  not  in  clerical  force, 
were  the  Presbyterians,  who  did  not  exist  in  the 
colonies  as  an  organized  body  till  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  At  the  epoch  of  our  sur- 
vey they  numbered  three  hundred  churches,  their 
main  strength  lying  in  the  Middle  States.  The 
original  members  of  this  communion  were  almost 
exclusively  of  Scotch  or  Irish-Scotch  descent,  —  a 
circumstance  which  has  colored  their  whole  history. 
Unlike  the  Congregationalists  of  New  England, 
with  whom  at  this  time  they  heartily  sympathized  in 
theological  opinion,  they  had  brought  with  them  to 
this  country  a  completely  developed  ecclesiastical 
polity,  for  which  they  had  suffered  bitter  persecu- 
tion, and  to  which  they  clung  with  the  devotion 
which  sacrifice  inspires.  The  Congregationalists, 
their  veins  flowing  with  pure  English  blood,  had 
boldly  struck  out  new  paths  ;  the  Presbyterians, 
with  the  resolute  tenacity  characteristic  of  the  Scot- 
tish race,  clung  to  the  old.  The  Great  Awakening, 
which  shook  Congregationalism  to  its  centre,  had 
15 


226  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

also  for  a  time  divided  them,  but  attachment  to  a 
common  system  soon  triumphed  over  Old  Side  and 
New  Side  differences,  and  the  controversy  left  no 
permanent  memorial  but  the  famous  college  which, 
founded  by  the  radical  party,  has  since  become  the 
Ehrenbreitstein  of  Presbyterian  conservatism.  The 
early  Presbyterians  brought  with  them  profound  re- 
spect for  letters,  and  they  insisted  hardly  less  stren- 
uously than  the  Congregationalists  that  the  teachers 
of  the  people  should  be  themselves  well  taught.  In 
the  ranks  of  their  clergy  were  men  of  varied  and 
accurate  learning,  not  a  few  having  been  trained  in 
foreign  universities.  Some  were  eminent  for  clas- 
sical scholarship.  If  inferior  to  the  New  England 
clergy  in  aptitude  for  metaphysical  speculation,  they 
were  equal,  at  least,  in  Biblical  learning,  and  superior 
in  pulpit  power.  Their  eminence  as  preachers  was 
mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  trained  to 
speak  without  notes,  while  the  New  England  minis- 
ter was  closely  confined  to  his  elaborately  written 
manuscript.  Even  up  to  the  close  of  the  last  cen- 
tury the  prejudice  against  preaching  written  ser- 
mons was  still  so  strong  in  the  Presbyterian  church 
"  that  a  man's  reputation  would  be  ruined  should  his 
manuscript  be  seen."  The  Presbyterian  clergy  also 
cultivated  at  all  times  the  practice  of  Scriptural  ex- 
position, while  in  New  England  reading  a  chapter  of 
the  Bible  in  public  worship  was  looked  upon  as  a 
long  step  in  the  direction  of  a  liturgy.  Dr.  Hop- 
kins, who  ventured  upon  the  dangerous  feat  during 
his  ministry  in  Western  Massachusetts,  brought  on 
himself  a  storm  of  opposition.  When  the  Revolu- 
tion came,  the  Presbyterians  were  staunch  advocates 
of  popular  rights,  and  in  the  Middle  States  were  the 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  227 

main  support  of  the  cause  of  independence.  All 
their  traditions  were  on  the  side  of  resistance  to 
oppression.  Among  them  at  this  time  were  num- 
bered those  whose  fathers  had  fought  in  the  dikes 
of  Holland  and  on  the  bloody  fields  of  France,  as 
well  as  in  Highland  glens  and  behind  the  walls  of 
Derry.  Nothing  in  their  history  or  temper  disposed 
them  to  remain  silent  when  a  great  struggle  was 
going  on.  Neither  in  Scotland  nor  in  this  country 
did  they  hesitate  to  act  according  to  their  convic- 
tions. The  direction  of  their  political  sympathy 
was  shown  in  the  name  selected  for  their  college,  — 
Nassau  Hall,  —  and  from  the  presidency  of  Nassau 
Hall  the  accomplished  Witherspoon  went  to  take 
his  seat  in  the  Continental  Congress.  The  Revolu- 
tion reenforced  the  Presbyterian  church  by  estab- 
lishing the  republican  principle  on  which  the  Pres- 
byterian polity  was  rested. 

Of  the  minor  religious  bodies  existing  a  century 
ago  less  need  be  said,  as  they  influenced  but  little 
the  general  current  of  events.  Of  these  the  Re- 
formed Dutch,  the  Lutheran,  and  the  German  Re- 
formed were  in  numbers  nearly  equal,  each  having 
about  sixty  congregations.  But  the  Reformed 
Dutch,  though  long  established  and  highly  respect- 
able for  the  character  and  learning  of  its  clergy, 
was  almost  debarred  from  growth  by  its  close  de- 
pendence upon  the  Church  of  Holland  and  its  per- 
sistent use  of  the  Dutch  language  in  public  wor- 
ship, —  a  practice  kept  up  in  many  churches  till 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  The  Lu- 
theran church,  linked  in  its  origin  with  memories 
of  Gustavus  and  Oxenstern,  was  confined  to  the 
German  emigration,  a  large  proportion  of  its  clergy 


228  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

having  been  educated  at  the  University  of  Halle  or 
at  Franke's  Orphan  House.  The  German  Re- 
formed, as  its  name  implies,  included  that  part  of 
the  German  population  which  refused  assent  to  the 
Augsburg  Confession.  In  form  of  government  the 
three  were  Presbyterian.  The  small  body  of  Asso- 
ciate Presbyterians,  a  secession  from  the  Scottish 
Kirk,  should  be  reckoned  in  the  same  family.  Ac- 
cording to  Bishop  England's  estimate,  the  whole 
number  of  Roman  Catholic  clergy  in  the  country 
did  not  exceed  twenty-six,  though  the  congregations 
were  perhaps  twice  as  numerous.  The  rites  of  the 
church  were  publicly  celebrated  nowhere  but  in 
Philadelphia.  A  few  gentle  Moravians  had  followed 
Zinzendorf  to  the  New  World,  and  their  communion, 
Episcopal  in  government,  but  Lutheran  in  doctrine, 
comprised  eight  congregations.  Methodism  had 
been  introduced,  but  whether  by  Strawbridge  in 
1764,  or  by  Embury  in  1766,  is  still  disputed.  Up 
to  the  Revolution,  however,  the  body  had  no  distinct 
existence  in  this  country  ;  and  as  soon  as  hostilities 
c  mmenced  all  the  preachers  except  Asbury  hur- 
ried back  to  England.  As  early  as  1770,  John  Mur- 
ray, whose  curious  autobiography  should  be  studied 
by  all  who  would  understand  the  early  history  of 
this  country,  had  begun  to  preach  the  doctrine  of 
universal  salvation  ;  but  as  on  other  points  he  did 
not  differ  from  the  orthodox  creed  he  was  at  first 
admitted  to  Congregational  and  even  to  Episcopal 
pulpits.  The  Quakers  were  still  numerous  in  the 
colony  which  Penn  had  founded,  and  the  great  Lis- 
bon earthquake  sent  to  Newport  a  small  but  wealthy 
society  of  Jews.  The  summer  visitor,  strolling 
through   the   streets  of    the    "fair   seaport  town," 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  229 

pauses  to  gaze  at  the  sepulchral  stones  carved  with 
strange  characters  which  recall  a  faith  whose  hoary 
traditions  make  our  modern  creeds  seem  but  of  yes- 
terday. 

"  Closed  are  the  portals  of  their  Synagogue, 
No  Psalms  of  David  now  the  silence  break; 
No  Rabbi  reads  the  ancient  Decalogue 
In  the  grand  dialect  the  Prophets  spake." 

The  first  impression  that  we  derive  from  the  fore- 
going facts  is  that  of  the  diversity  of  religious  belief 
existing  in  the  colonies,  but  a  more  careful  analysis 
will  show  that  beneath  this  apparent  diversity  there 
was  a  widely  pervading  unity.  Between  the  ecclesias- 
tical polity  of  the  Congregationalists  and  the  Bap- 
tists there  was  no  essential  difference  ;  while  the 
systems  of  the  Presbyterians,  the  Lutheran,  the 
Dutch  Reformed,  and  the  German  Reformed  were 
alike  in  everything  but  the  nomenclature  adopted. 
And  between  all  these,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Lutheran,  comprising  together  more  than  three 
fourths  of  all  the  churches,  there  existed  the  most 
entire  harmony  of  dogmatic  faith.  That  faith, 
whether  embodied  in  the  Assembly's  Catechism, 
the  Heidelberg  Confession,  or  the  Articles  of  the 
Synod  of  Dort,  was  the  logical  and  precise  system 
which  the  Reformer  who  "  pierced  to  the  roots  "  had 
knit  with  hooks  of  steel  to  the  sternest  hearts  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  It  was  the  faith  of  John  Knox, 
of  William  the  Silent,  and  of  Admiral  Coligny  ;  and 
could  the  heroic  founder  of  the  ill-fated  Huguenot 
colony  in  Florida  have  lifted  the  veil  that  hid  the 
two  succeeding  centuries,  and  have  seen  the  flag  of 
Geneva  flying  in  almost  undisputed  triumph  from  the 
Merrimac  to  the  St.  John's,  he  might  have  deemed 


230  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

the  dark  crime  of  Menendez  more  than  avenged. 
These  churches,  too,  whether  in  the  parochial  au- 
tonomy of  the  Congregationalists  or  the  synodical 
federation  of  the  Presbyterians,  were  singularly  in 
harmony  with  the  political  movement ;  and  that  re- 
publican states  and  republican  churches  would  flour- 
ish side  by  side  seemed  a  conclusion  admitting 
of  no  doubt.  In  1783  the  famous  Dr.  Stiles,  the 
president  of  Yale  College,  preached  the  Election 
Sermon  before  the  Legislature  of  Connecticut.  His 
inspiring  theme  was  "  The  Future  Glory  of  the 
United  States,"  and,  warming  to  the  hazardous  role 
of  a  prophet,  he  declared  "  that  when  we  look  for- 
ward and  see  this  country  increased  to  forty  or  fifty 
millions,  while  we  see  all  the  religious  sects  increased 
into  respectable  bodies,  we  shall  doubtless  find  the 
united  body  of  the  Congregational  and  Presbyterian 
churches  making  an  equal  figure  with  any  two  of 
them."  Then  enumerating  the  lesser  sects,  he  con- 
siderately adds  :  "  There  are  Westleians,  Mennon- 
ists,  and  others,  all  of  which  will  make  a  very  incon- 
siderable amount  in  comparison  with  those  who  will 
give  the  religious  complexion  to  America."  And 
there  was  no  man  living  at  that  time  whose  opinion 
on  this  matter  was  entitled  to  more  respect. 

We  have  now  reached  the  limit  of  forty  millions, 
and  in  the  light  of  the  census  of  1870  the  vaticina- 
tions of  the  learned  president  will  deserve  to  be 
regarded  as  curiosities  of  literature.  The  Congre- 
gationalists, who  in  his  day  were  double  the  size  of 
any  other  body,  now  rank  as  seventh,  while  the 
"  Westleians,"  whom  he  hardly  names,  stand  largely 
in  advance  of  all  the  rest.  A  century  ago  the  more 
important   religious  bodies  were   ranked  in  the  fol 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  23  I 

lowing  order:  Congregational,  Baptist,  Church  of 
England,  Presbyterian,  Lutheran,  German  Reformed, 
Dutch  Reformed,  Roman  Catholic.  By  the  census 
of  1870  they  stood  :  Methodist,  Baptist,  Presbyterian, 
Roman  Catholic,  Christian,  Lutheran,  Congrega- 
tional, Protestant  Episcopal.  Tested  not  as  in  the 
foregoing  comparison  by  number  of  churches,  but  by 
number  of  sittings,  the  order  remains  the  same  for 
the  four  larger,  but  the  Congregationalists  and  Epis- 
copalians would  outrank  the  Lutherans  and  Christians. 
Tested  again  by  value  of  church  property,  the  Roman 
Catholics  come  second,  and  the  Episcopalians  fifth. 
Yet  far  more  striking  than  these  relative  contrasts  is 
the  enormous  growth  of  American  Christianity  as  a 
whole,  —  a  growth  which,  as  the  figures  clearly  show, 
has  more  than  kept  pace  with  the  rapid  stride  of 
population.  A  careful  estimate  makes  the  whole 
number  of  religious  organizations  existing  in  the 
country  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  less  than 
nineteen  hundred  and  fifty.  The  total  population 
was  then  estimated  at  three  and  a  half  millions, 
which  would  show  a  church  for  every  seventeen 
hundred  souls.  By  the  recent  census,  the  total 
number  of  church  organizations  is  returned  at  more 
than  seventy-two  thousand,  which,  in  a  population 
of  thirty-eight  millions,  would  show  a  church  for 
every  five  hundred  and  twenty-nine.  In  other  words, 
while  the  population  has  multiplied  eleven-fold,  the 
churches  have  multiplied  nearly  thirty-seven  fold. 
The  aggregate  value  of  church  property  cannot  be 
subjected  to  the  same  test,  since  we  have  no  means 
of  estimating  the  amount  a  century  ago  ;  but  in  1870 
it  reached  the  considerable  sum  of  three  hundred 
and  fifty-four  millions.     An  illustration  of  the  work- 


232  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

ing  of  the  voluntary  principle  is  furnished  in  the  fact 
that  the  church  which  seemed  hopelessly  ship- 
wrecked by  the  Revolution,  and  which,  as  some  of 
its  most  sincere  supporters  thought,  had  no  prospect 
of  existing  without  the  public  aid  on  which  it  had 
so  long  depended,  now  ranks  for  its  property  as  fifth 
in  the  whole  land.  A  recent  Bampton  lecturer  af- 
firmed that  the  experiments  of  voluntaryism  and 
disestablishment,  when  tried  in  England  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  had  proved  signal 
failures.  In  this  country  the  church  of  Hooker  and 
Tillotson  has  certainly  shown  herself  able  to  go 
alone.  But  the  most  extraordinary  increase  of  ec- 
clesiastical wealth  is  seen  with  the  Methodists  and 
Roman  Catholics,  because  a  century  ago  they  had 
absolutely  nothing.  Indeed,  the  rapid  ratio  of  in- 
crease during  the  last  two  decades  might  well  attract 
attention,  were  it  not  that  this  vast  amount  of  prop- 
erty is  distributed  among  so  many  different  bodies. 
Such  statistics  are  of  course  very  unsatisfactory  tests 
of  the  real  growth  of  religion.  Even  could  the  pre- 
cise number  of  professed  Christians  be  ascertained, 
we  should  still  be  quite  as  much  in  the  dark.  The 
subtle  forces  of  the  invisible  world  disdain  the  rules 
of  arithmetic.  Yet  statistics,  after  all,  afford  us  the 
only  means  of  reaching  general  conclusions  ;  and 
much  as  we  hear  of  the  decay  of  faith,  and  of  the 
growth  of  religious  indifference,  it  seems  certain, 
from  this  comparison,  that  the  positive  institutions 
of  religion  have  not,  during  the  last  century,  lost 
their  hold  on  the  mass  of  the  American  people.  A 
more  zealous  and  liberal  support  has  nowhere  been 
accorded  to  them. 

Facts  like  these  lie,  however,  on  the  surface,  and 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  233 

similar  comparisons  might  be  multiplied  to  any 
length.  It  will  form  a  more  instructive  task  to  trace 
the  less  oovious  phenomena  of  our  complex  religious 
life.  We  have  seen  that  a  century  ago  the  specula- 
tive faith  of  the  various  religious  bodies  then  exist- 
ing in  America  was  singularly  homogeneous.  The 
church  organizations  that  gave  tone  to  American 
society  heartily  agreed  in  accepting  the  most  pre- 
cise dogmatic  system  to  which  Protestantism  had 
given  birth.  Perhaps  no  feature  of  our  religious 
progress  is  more  striking  than  the  wide-spread  reac- 
tion that  has  been  witnessed,  not  so  much  against 
any  particular  tenet  of  the  old  theology  as  against 
the  whole  dogmatic  apprehension  of  Christianity. 
How  far  this  reaction  has  been  helped  by  any  change 
of  political  sentiment  is  a  curious  question,  but  one 
not  easily  answered.  Mr.  Lecky  expresses  the  opin- 
ion that,  "  if  in  the  sphere  of  religion  the  rational- 
istic doctrine  of  personal  merit  and  demerit  should 
ever  completely  supersede  the  theological  doctrine 
of  hereditary  merit  and  demerit,  the  change  will 
mainly  be  effected  by  the  triumph  of  democratic 
principles  in  the  sphere  of  politics  ; "  and  he  might 
have  drawn  an  illustration  of  his  theory  from  the 
fact  that  the  great  religious  revolt  in  this  country 
from  the  exclusiveness  of  Calvinism  was  coincident 
with  the  great  democratic  revolt  from  the  conserva- 
tive politics  of  the  founders  of  the  republic.  If  a 
connection  could  be  established  between  the  two,  it 
would  be  by  no  means  the  first  instance  of  two 
movements  essentially  distinct,  yet  due,  in  some 
measure,  to  the  same  general  causes.  This  religious 
reaction  assumed  various  forms,  and  was  attended 
with  verv  different    results.      Its   most   direct   and 


234  RELIGION  IX  AMERICA. 

obvious  effect  was  seen  in  the  rise  of  new  religious 
sects,  but  its  influence  was  destined  to  be  powerfully 
felt  in  modifying  some  already  existing.  One  of  its 
earliest  fruits  was  the  formation,  near  the  close  of 
the  last  century,  of  the  "  United  Brethren  in  Christ," 
made  up  of  seceders  from  the  German  Reformed 
and  Lutheran  bodies,  and  now  numbering  nearly 
fifteen  hundred  churches.  The  numerous  sect  of 
"  Christians,"  which  sprang  up  simultaneously  in 
three  different  localities,  near  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century,  and  now  numbers  more  than  thirty- 
five  hundred  churches,  was  an  illustration  of  the 
same  movement.  So  was  the  remarkable  "  Decla- 
ration "  of  Alexander  Campbell  in  1807.  But  by 
far  the  most  important  phase  of  this  reaction  is 
shown  in  the  enormous  growth  of  Methodism.  It 
would  argue  a  most  superficial  acquaintance  with  this 
great  movement  to  define  it  as  essentially  a  protest ; 
but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  in  the  religious  his- 
tory of  this  country  Methodism  represents  a  profound 
popular  reaction.  In  this  light  the  rise  of  this  great 
and  influential  body  must  be  viewed  as  the  most 
signal  religious  fact  which  the  past  century  pre- 
sents. When  their  first  conference  met  at  Baltimore 
in  1784  they  collected  but  sixty  preachers,  and  it  was 
reckoned  that  in  the  whole  country  they  could  mus- 
ter but  twenty  more.  Dr.  Stiles  did  them  no  injus- 
tice when  he  spoke  of  them  in  his  Election  Sermon 
as  "very  inconsiderable."  They  were  not  only  few 
in  number,  but  poor  and  unknown  ;  they  worshipped 
in  barns,  in  back  streets,  and  beneath  the  canopy  of 
heaven.  By  the  census  of  1870  they  were  credited 
with  more  than  twenty-five  thousand  parish  organ- 
izations, and  a  church  property  of  seventy  millions 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  235 

Their  own  statistics  for  the  past  year  give  more 
than  twent)  -six  thousand  preachers,  and  a  church 
property  of  more  than  eighty  millions.  The  churches 
have  increased  at  the  rate  of  two  for  each  secular 
day  throughout  the  year.  They  are  now  by  far  the 
most  numerous  religious  organization  in  the  land, 
and  with  a  zeal  and  confidence  fully  proportioned 
to  their  strength.  A  phenomenon  so  striking  can- 
not be  explained  but  from  the  operation  of  some 
powerful  cause.  The  growth  of  Methodism  may  be 
attributed  in  part  to  its  wonderful  organization  ;  yet 
it  would  seem  that  in  this  country  the  extremely 
autocratic  character  of  that  organization,  while  se- 
curing it  extraordinary  efficiency,  could  not  have 
gained  it  popular  favor.  The  vital  power  of  Meth- 
odism must  be  sought,  not  in  its  form,  but  in  its 
spirit.  It  is  impossible  to  account  for  its  rapid 
growth,  save  on  the  hypothesis  that  it  met  a  great 
popular  want.  And  it  is  equally  impossible  not  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  this  adaptation  lay  in  the 
sharp  contrast  which  it  presented  to  the  prevailing 
faith.  The  immense  popular  influence  of  Methodism 
lay  in  its  bold  appeal  from  "  the  theology  of  the  in- 
tellect "  to  "  the  theology  of  the  feelings."  Calvin- 
ism, throughout  all  its  camps,  "  lay  intrenched  in  the 
outworks  of  the  understanding  ;  "  but  to  souls  sated 
with  theological  formulas,  Methodism,  with  its  di- 
rect intuitions  of  divine  truth,  came  like  springs  of 
water  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land.  Wesley  rejected 
all  creeds  but  the  simple  symbol  of  the  Apostles  ; 
and  if  his  American  disciples  departed  from  his  ex- 
ample in  adopting  articles  of  faith,  they  conformed 
to  his  spirit  in  making  these  articles  "  a  simple  com- 
oendium  of  the  Universal   Church,  excluding  even 


236  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

the  peculiar  features    of   the  Wesleyan    theology." 
They  insisted,  always  and  everywhere,  that  religious 
faith  is  not  a  logical  conviction.     Making  their  ap- 
peal  at   once   to   man's   spiritual  nature,   laying   no 
stress  on  nice  theological  distinctions,  they  naturally 
held  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  in  light  esteem 
as  a  qualification  for  saving  souls.     Not  one  of  the 
men  who  founded  Methodism  in  America,  with  the 
single  exception   of    Coke,  had  received  a  college 
education.     Asbury,  whose  influence  was  incompa- 
rably greater  than  that  of  Coke,  had  never  enjoyed 
this  advantage.     The  great  feature  of  early  Method- 
ism was  its  faith  in  immediate  inspiration.      Its  lead- 
ers lived,  like  Loyola,  in  a  world  of  ecstatic  visions. 
Not  only  were  they  inwardly  called  of  God,  but  some- 
times, like  Garrettson,  they  heard  the  audible  voice 
of  the  Spirit.     The  religious  Genius  of  New  England 
had  recognized  in  love  the  benign  sum  of  all  moral- 
ity ;  but  the  doctrine  which  his  followers  had  ob- 
scured with  the  metaphysics  of  the  will,  became  with 
the  Methodist  a  burning  impulse.     The  Quaker  had 
exalted  the  Inner  Light,  but  what  with  the  disciple 
of  Fox  had  sunk  into  an  inoffensive  quietism,  with 
the  disciple   of  Wesley  became  the  impulse  to  an 
unexampled  effort.     It  was  estimated  that  Asbury, 
during  the  forty-five  years  of  his  untiring  ministry, 
rode  a  distance  that  would  have  taken  him  twelve 
times  round  the  earth.      When  we  read  the  story 
which  one  of  the  early  missionaries  of  Methodism 
tells  of  himself,  but  a  story  which  hundreds,  doubt- 
less, might  have  repeated,  —  "  I  traversed  the  moun- 
\ains  and  valleys,  frequently  on  foot,  with  my  knap- 
sack on  my  back,   guided   by  Indian   paths   in  the 
wilderness  where  it  was   not  expedient  to  take  a 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  237 

horse  ;  and  I  had  often  to  wade  through  morasses 
half-leg  deep  in  mud  and  water  ;  frequently  satisfy- 
ing my  hunger  with  a  piece  of  bread  and  pork  from 
my  knapsack,  quenching  my  thirst  from  a  brook, 
and  resting  my  weary  limbs  on  the  leaves  of  trees," 
who  does  not  seem  to  hear  in  these  words  the  ring 
of  the  verses,  "  In  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  wa- 
ters, in  perils  in  the  wilderness,  in  weariness  and 
painfulness,  in  hunger  and  thirst  ;  "  and  who  can 
doubt  that  the  causes  which  gave  Methodism  its 
early  success  were  the  same  that  first  carried  the 
gospel  to  Damascus,  to  Antioch,  to  Corinth,  and 
to  Caesar's  palace  ?  As  Methodism  has  exchanged 
weakness  for  strength,  and  poverty  for  wealth,  its 
outward  aspect  has  greatly  altered  :  the  plain  meet- 
ing-house has  become  the  highly  decorated  church  ; 
the  unlettered  preacher  has  learned  to  emulate  the 
culture  which  he  once  held  so  cheap ;  colleges  and 
theological  schools  have  been  generously  endowed  ; 
and  a  powerful  periodical  press  discusses  with  dignity 
and  erudition  doctrines  which  once  struggled  for  ut- 
terance from  burning  tongues  ;  yet'  neither  learning 
nor  culture  were  the  weapons  with  which  Methodism 
achieved  its  early  triumphs,  and  which  caused  it,  in 
the  striking  words  carved  on  Philip  Embury's  tomb, 
"to  beautify  the  earth  with  salvation." 

At  first  glance  it  may  seem  that  the  growth  of 
the  Baptist  denomination,  which  now  ranks  as  sec- 
ond in  the  land  in  point  of  numbers,  contradicts 
what  has  been  advanced,  since  the  Baptists,  in  the 
usual  acceptation  of  that  name,  are  a  Calvinistic 
body.  But  while  it  is  true  that  this  body,  as  a  whole, 
accept  the  modified  Calvinism  of  Andrew  Fuller,  yet 
it  is  not  the  less  true  that  their  distinctive  tenet  in- 


238  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

volves  a  logical  denial  of  that  "  doctrine  of  heredi- 
tary merit  and  demerit"  which  lies  at  the  base  of 
the  Calvinistic  scheme.  Every  speculative  objec- 
tion to  infant  baptism  was  equally  an  argument 
against  the  realistic  conception  which  pervaded  the 
old  theology.  As  a  natural  result  of  this  attitude 
no  characteristic  of  the  Baptists  has  been  more 
marked  than  their  contempt  for  all  the  historical 
statements  of  Christianity.  They  have  made  their 
appeal  to  Scripture  as  the  sole  authority.  This,  in- 
deed, is  defined  by  their  most  eminent  American 
representative  as  their  "  fundamental  principle  ;  " 
and  to  this  principle,  through  all  their  history,  they 
have  steadfastly  adhered.  The  much-vaunted  maxim, 
"  The  Bible,  the  Bible  only,"  has  found  with  them 
its  most  consistent  advocates.  Like  the  Method- 
ists, they  have  undergone,  in  the  course  of  a  cen- 
tury, a  great  change  in  external  features.  Re- 
nouncing their  preference  for  "  lowly  preaching," 
they  have  become  zealous  promoters  of  ministerial 
education.  Among  their  divines  are  men  whose 
names  are  ornaments  of  American  scholarship,  but 
it  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  their  valuable  contribu- 
tions to  religious  literature  have  all  been  in  the  line 
of  Biblical  exegesis  ;  to  speculative  theology  they 
have  made  no  important  addition.  Nor  can  it  be 
doubted  that  their  great  popular  success  is  due  to 
the  concrete  simplicity  of  their  creed,  coupled  with 
their  extremely  democratic  polity.  And  whatever 
their  technical  theological  position,  their  whole  de- 
nominational strain  has  been  in  the  direction  of  re- 
volt from  antiquity,  tradition,  and  church  authority. 
But  the  boldest  renunciation  of  dogmatic  faith 
was  witnessed   among  the   descendants  of  the  Pu- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  239 

ritans.  This  outbreak  had  two  phases.  The  re- 
strained and  scholarly  Arminianism,  which  made  its 
appearance  first,  appealed  to  Scripture  from  human 
creeds  ;  yet  in  its  philosophical  method  and  formal 
conceptions  of  religious  truth  it  did  not  differ  from 
the  Calvinism,  to  which  it  stood  opposed.  Both 
accepted  Locke,  whese  system  sapped  the  founda- 
tions of  the  old  theology.  The  real  revolt  was  the 
rise  of  the  Transcendental  school,  which  threw  all 
external  authority  to  the  winds,  and  owned  no  guide 
but  the  spiritual  intuitions.  The  "  Address  to  the 
Divinity  School "  was  the  veritable  proclamation  of 
a  new  gospel,  —  a  gospel  which  indeed  "  ravished  the 
souls  "  of  the  elect,  but  proved  too  subtle  and  ethe- 
real to  become  "  bread  of  life  to  millions."  This 
ambrosial  food  was  transmuted  into  homelier  diet  by 
Mr.  Parker,  and  has  served  to  furnish  the  board  of 
the  later  Free  Religionists. 

In  resisting  the  Unitarians,  the  more  numerous 
section  of  the  Congregationalists  were  betrayed  into 
a  position  which  their  own  traditions  did  not  jus- 
tify, and  the  way  to  the  Lord's  table  was  fenced 
with  "  sound  forms  of  words."  But  various  influ- 
ences soon  began  to  work  in  an  opposite  direction. 
The  Evangelical  revival,  by  laying  as  it  did  such 
stress  on  emotional  experience,  weakened  the  hold 
of  objective  truth.  The  great  impulse  given  at  An- 
dover  to  Biblical  study,  under  the  inspiring  lead  of 
Stuart,  disclosed  the  weakness  of  the  old  exegesis, 
and  introduced  the  more  comprehensive  methods  of 
German  criticism.  And  a  small  but  thoughtful  and 
cultivated  section,  deriving  from  Coleridge  the  fruit- 
ful maxim  that  "  Christianity  is  not  a  theory  or 
speculation,  but  a  living  process,"  rallied  the  Tran- 


240  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

scendental  philosophy  to  the  support  of  Christian 
faith.  Thus  the  orthodox  mind  of  New  England 
was  gradually  loosed  from  its  old  moorings.  The 
change  was  shown  less  in  direct  antagonism  to 
any  specific  doctrine  than  in  silent  modification 
of  mental  habits.  What  had  been  betokened  by 
more  than  one  significant  sign  was  at  last  brought 
clearly  to  light  in  the  Congregational  Council  con- 
vened at  Boston  in  1865,  an  assembly  which  justly 
attracted  attention  for  its  intelligence  and  dignity. 
At  this  convention  an  attempt  was  made  to  agree 
upon  some  doctrinal  basis  for  the  denomination  ; 
but  after  earnest  discussion  the  utmost  that  could 
be  accomplished  was  to  "  affirm  substantially  "  the 
Confessions  of  1648  and  1680,  in  face  of  the  dec- 
laration made  by  a  leading  member  of  the  body 
that  "  there  is  language  in  every  one  of  these  old 
standards  which  not  a  man  upon  this  floor  re- 
ceives." Many  preferred  a  declaration  "  according 
to  the  fresh  language  of  the  present  time,"  but  the 
committee  to  whom  the  matter  was  referred  de- 
clined to  present  one,  for  the  reason  "  that  it  could 
not  be  harmoniously  adopted."  And  in  taking  their 
action  it  was  expressly  understood  that  the  Council 
affirmed  those  venerable  formulas  "  only  in  a  qual- 
ified manner."  A  "  compromise  document "  was 
subsequently  adopted  by  the  Council,  with  much  so- 
lemnity, at  Plymouth.  But  so  rapid  was  the  march 
of  opinion  that  at  the  Oberlin  Council,  held  only 
six  years  later,  the  declaration  adopted  at  Plymouth 
was  discarded,  on  the  ground  of  "  committing  the 
denomination  to  old  and  minute  confessions  ;  "  and 
a  new  one  was  adopted,  "  being  in  substance  the 
great  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith,"  of  which  the 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  24 1 

odd  remark  was  made  that  it  "  did  not  perfectly  ex- 
press the  exact  wishes  of  any  party."  Of  this  coun- 
cil a  very  high  authority  declared,  "  It  may  truly 
and  frankly  be  called  a  new  departure."  This  new 
departure  consisted  in  the  fact  that,  without  disown- 
ing old  confessions,  it  "  refused  to  make  them  tests 
of  fellowship."  Accordingly  the  Council  received  as 
full  members  the  Kentucky  delegates,  who  distinctly 
explained  that  "  their  churches  were  organized  on 
the  evangelical  basis,  ignoring  all  distinction  be- 
tween Calvinist  and  Arminian."  "  There  can  be  no 
doubt,"  wrote  a  prominent  member  of  the  Council, 
"  that  the  progress  of  Congregationalism  has  been 
greatly  retarded  by  the  former  limitation  of  its  de- 
nominational fellowship  to  Calvinistic  ministers  and 
churches."  Here  is  a  distinct  repudiation  of  the 
position  asserted  with  so  much  earnestness  sixty 
years  before. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  American  religious  life, 
compounded  as  it  is  of  such  various  elements,  that 
it  presents  many  diverse  phenomena  ;  and  we  should 
run  the  risk  of  very  imperfect  generalization  if  any 
one  class  were  made  too  prominent.  Coupled  with 
this  marked  reaction  against  a  dogmatic  apprehen- 
sion of  religion  there  has  been  a  tendency  equally 
marked  and  equally  important  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion, —  a  tendency  that  does  not  any  less  deserve  to 
be  regarded  as  a  representative  movement  in  our 
religious  history.  In  all  countries  where  a  connec- 
tion between  church  and  state  is  recognized,  whether 
Catholic  or  Protestant,  the  ecclesiastical  power  is 
subject  to  important  limitation  ;  for  the  permanent 
contact  of  the  spiritual  and  temporal  authority  re- 
quires that  the  sphere  of  either  should  be  precisely 
16 


242  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

marked.  This  rule  holds  as  well  in  Portugal  as  it 
holds  in  Prussia.  Thus,  when  the  relations  of  the 
two  are  not  inimical,  the  free  action  of  the  church 
is  fettered.  Hence,  in  this  country,  where  for  the 
first  time  since  Constantine  the  religious  element 
has  been  left  absolutely  without  restraint,  condi- 
tions of  ecclesiastical  development  have  been  sup- 
plied such  as  exist  nowhere  else  in  Christendom. 
Each  religious  organization  has  been  allowed  free 
scope  to  unfold  according  to  its  own  interior  law, 
and  solve  after  its  own  way  its  distinctive  ecclesias- 
tical problem.  The  result  has  been  a  quickening 
of  ecclesiastical  activity  and  an  impulse  to  ecclesias- 
tical development,  which  already  constitute  a  sig- 
nificant feature  of  our  history,  and  promise  to  re- 
vive questions  which  were  supposed  to  have  been 
forever  settled.  Here,  again,  an  interesting  ques- 
tion presents  itself,  — the  question  whether  any  con- 
nection can  be  traced  between  this  tendency  to 
strong  religious  organizations  and  the  general  laxity 
in  our  political  ideas.  It  is  certain  that  the  ecclesi- 
astical life  of  the  Middle  Age  was  greatly  stimulated 
by  the  prevailing  political  anarchy,  and  it  seems 
not  unlikely  that  the  increasing  fluctuation  of  our 
own  political  life  may  have  disposed  some  to  look 
with  more  favor  upon  stable  ecclesiastical  forms. 
But  whatever  may  be  the  occult  cause  of  the  phe- 
nomenon, its  existence  is  beyond  question.  It  is  a 
common  impression  that  the  prevailing  impulse  of 
American  religion  is  to  split  up  into  an  endless  va- 
riety of  sects.  "  How  can  I  live  in  a  country,"  Dr. 
Dollinger  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  where  they 
found  a  new  church  every  day  ? "  But  nothing  ap- 
pears more  certain,  from  a  review  of  our  religious 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  243 

history,  than  the  gradual  working  of  a  tendency  in 
precisely  the  opposite  direction.  The  multiplicity 
of  sects  is,  indeed,  a  patent  fact,  and  in  a  land  where 
expression  of  opinion  on  all  subjects  is  unrestrained, 
and  where  combination  for  every  purpose  is  al- 
lowed, such  a  result  is  not  surprising  ;  but  most  of 
the  petty  organizations  that  go  to  swell  the  porten- 
tous aggregate  are  but  ripples  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream,  appearing  for  a  moment  and  then  vanish- 
ing forever.  In  their  most  repulsive  forms  they 
are  mere  social  excrescences,  deriving  their  morbid 
growth  mainly  from  foreign  sources.  The  most 
characteristic  fact  of  our  religious  history,  as  the 
census  clearly  shows,  is  not  the  tendency  of  Amer- 
ican Christianity  to  split  up  into  a  multiplicity  of 
sects,  but  its  disposition  to  aggregate  itself  under 
a  few  great  denominational  types.  This  conserv- 
ative preference  of  the  vast  majority  for  stable  eccle- 
siastical order  is  a  leading  and  unmistakable  dis- 
tinction of  our  religious  life.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  tendency  at  an  earlier  period,  at  the  pres- 
ent time  it  is  undeniably  in  this  direction. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  the  religious  or- 
ganizations which  were  transplanted  to  this  country 
seemed,  under  the  inspiration  of  our  institutions,  to 
acquire  new  energy.  This  result  was  witnessed 
with  the  Methodists,  who,  in  England,  during  Wes- 
ley's life,  had  clung  to  the  skirts  of  the  Establish- 
ment, but  here  boldly  organized  a  complete  church, 
and  proceeded  to  the  institution  of  bishops.  The 
success  of  the  Methodists  was  due  hardly  less  to 
their  autocratic  discipline  than  to  their  burning  zeal. 
And  it  should  be  observed  that  it  is  the  recognized 
value  of  the  system  which  has  commended  it  to  pop- 


244  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

ular  regard.  But  a  more  important  illustration  of 
the  same  principle  is  presented  in  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church.  The  history  of  this  influential  body, 
which  now  ranks  as  third  in  the  country,  is  espe- 
cially instructive,  for  the  reason  that  its  uniform  and 
healthy  growth  is  not  connected,  as  is  that  of  the 
Methodists,  with  exceptional  phenomena,  but  is  the 
evident  result  of  the  persistent  and  intelligent  ad- 
ministration of  an  admirable  polity.  In  the  face  of 
the  proudest  monarchy  of  Europe,  it  had  proclaimed 
its  capacity  of  self-direction,  and  in  the  new  field 
which  this  country  opened  it  was  not  backward  in 
asserting  a  logical  development.  No  sooner  was  the 
Revolution  ended  than  the  Presbyterians  took  the 
first  steps  towards  a  complete  organization ;  and 
before  the  Federal  government  had  gone  into  opera- 
tion the  constitution  of  the  church  was  adopted  as 
it  now  stands.  From  the  outset  it  assumed  the 
character  of  a  missionary  church,  and  in  the  earliest 
General  Assembly  a  plan  was  adopted  for  promot- 
ing the  evangelization  of  the  West  ;  and  in  the  most 
gloomy  period  of  our  religious  history,  the  closing 
decade  of  the  last  century,  when  the  wide  diffusion 
of  French  Revolutionary  maxims  "  threatened  the 
dissolution  of  religious  society,"  the  growth  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  was  uniform  and  rapid.  Noth- 
ing is  so  characteristic  of  this  church  as  the  reso- 
lution with  which  it  has  adhered  to  its  theological 
and  its  ecclesiastical  traditions.  Amid  the  great 
movements  of  modern  thought,  it  has  stood  un- 
flinchingly to  its  Confession,  and  in  the  great  cnses 
of  its  history  has  been  thoroughly  consistent  with  it- 
self. When  the  West  was  frenzied  with  religious  ex- 
citement, rather  than  relax  its  requirements  for  the 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  245 

ministry,  it  submitted  to  the  great  Cumberland 
secession  of  18 10,  preferring  well-tried  method  to 
mere  numerical  increase  ;  and  when,  in  consequence 
Df  the  famous  "  Plan  of  Union,"  it  found  itself  in- 
vaded with  New  England  usages  and  New  England 
ideas,  it  preferred  the  excision  of  nearly  half  its 
members  rather  than  not  purge  itself  of  the  foreign 
element.  Whatever  successes  it  has  gained  have 
not  been  gained  by  denying  its  principles,  or  by  mak- 
ing terms  with  its  opponents.  The  steady  growth  of 
this  powerful  communion,  in  the  face  of  its  uncom- 
promising assertion  of  a  rigid  dogmatic  system,  fur- 
nishes a  striking  illustration  of  the  decided  prefer- 
ence of  a  most  intelligent  section  of  the  American 
people  for  a  vigorous  and  well-administered  ecclesi- 
astical system.  The  Reunion  of  1871,  when,  after 
a  separation  of  more  than  thirty  years,  the  two 
branches  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  were  once 
more  happily  united,  whether  considered  in  its  im- 
mediate or  its  ultimate  consequences,  is  second  in 
importance  to  no  recent  event  of  our  religious  his- 
tory. It  fixed  universal  attention  as  showing  that 
the  tide  had  turned,  and  that  the  weary  period  of 
discord  and  secession  was  to  give  way  to  a  new 
period  of  union  and  consolidation.  There  seems  no 
good  reason  why  other  Presbyterian  bodies  should 
not  follow  the  example. 

This  marked  preference  of  the  majority  of  our  peo- 
ple for  well-ordered  system  may  be  still  more  con- 
clusively shown  from  contrasting  the  progress  of  the 
Congregational  and  Presbyterian  bodies.  A  cen- 
tury ago  the  Congregationalists  were  by  far  the  more 
numerous  and  influential.  The  two  were  in  close 
sympathy,    and  Congregational   delegates   were   al- 


246  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

lowed  to  sit  and  vote  in  the  General  Assembly.  Both 
cordially  united  in  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  for  com- 
bined missionary  operations  at  the  West  ;  but  it  was 
found  that  whenever  the  stronger  organization  came 
into  contact  with  the  weaker,  the  weaker  was  uni- 
formly swallowed  up,  and  the  result  was  an  immense 
loss  of  strength  to  the  Congregational  communion. 
It  would,  however,  be  an  error  to  represent  that 
the  change  in  the  relative  strength  of  the  Presby- 
terians and  Congregationalists  was  due  wholly  to 
difference  of  polity.  Other  causes  contributed  to 
weaken  Congregationalism  in  its  own  seats.  The 
proclivity  of  the  Congregational  clergy  for  political 
discussion,  so  conspicuous  in  the  period  preceding 
the  Revolution,  was  hardly  less  marked  during  the 
stormy  times  that  preluded  the  memorable  "  Civil 
Revolution  of  Eighteen  Hundred."  Almost  to  a 
man  the  Congregational  clergy  of  New  England 
were  on  the  Federal  side.  The  biographer  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  complains  with  bitterness  that  the  minis- 
ters were  all  for  Hamilton.  As  an  inevitable  result, 
the  Democratic  triumph  swept  from  the  New  Eng- 
land parishes  all  whose  sympathies  were  pledged  to 
the  victorious  faction,  and  considerable  numerical 
strength,  if  not  much  piety,  was  carried  over  to  rival 
congregations.  But  the  fatal  wound  was  inflicted 
upon  New  England  Congregationalism,  not  by  an 
enemy  but  by  its  own  hand.  The  doctrinal  antago- 
nism which  the  Revolution  for  a  time  had  smoth- 
ered blazed  up  at  the  publication  of  Belsham's  "  Life 
of  Lindsey"  ;  and  when  Channing  preached  his  fa- 
mous sermon  at  Baltimore  the  divorce  between  the 
main  body  of  Congregationalists  and  their  oldest 
traditions  and  finest  culture  was  complete.     Hence- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  247 

forth  the  New  England  Israel,  that  had  come  out 
of  Egypt  so  gloriously,  pursued  two  separate  paths, 
and  presented  the  unedifying  spectacle  of  a  house 
divided  against  itself. 

This  impulse  of  our  leading  religious  bodies  to  a 
complete  logical  development  has  naturally  led  to  a 
sharper  accentuation  of  ecclesiastical  distinctions. 
The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  furnishes  a  strik- 
ing illustration  of  this  tendency.  Attaining  its  com- 
plete organization  in  1789,  when  White  and  Provost 
were  consecrated  at  Lambeth  Palace,  during  its 
early  years  it  reflected  the  moderate  temper  of  the 
English  Church  of  the  last  century.  Its  leading 
characteristic  was  eminent  respectability  ;  its  preach- 
ing had  the  mild  accent  of  that  apologetic  period 
when,  as  Johnson  put  it,  the  apostles  were  tried  reg- 
ularly once  a  week  on  charge  of  committing  forgery. 
Bishop  White,  whose  unswerving  support  of  the 
cause  of  independence  showed  that  he  was  lacking 
in  no  manly  element,  as  a  preacher  was  "  dignified 
without  animation,"  and  "  much  esteemed  for  solid 
and  judicious  instruction."  Bishop  Jarvis  was  noted 
for  an  "  unusually  slow  and  deliberate  pronuncia- 
tion," a  characteristic  not  suggestive  of  excessive 
fervor.  The  amiable  Madison  "at  all  periods  of  his 
life  was  much  addicted  to  scientific  studies."  The 
early  style  of  Bishop  Griswold,  "  like  that  which 
generally  prevailed  in  the  church  at  the  time,  was 
rather  moral  than  evangelical."  Though  the  church 
derived  its  ecclesiastical  legitimacy  from  England, 
and  made  the  Anglican  Church  so  far  as  possible 
its  model,  yet  the  altered  conditions  of  society  ne- 
cessitated some  not  unimportant  changes.  Though 
the  American  bishops  retained  the  name  and  eccle- 


248  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

siastical  functions,  they  lacked  the  civil  rank  and 
ample  revenues  which  conferred  so  much  additional 
lustre  on  the  English  prelates  ;  and  the  absence  of 
patronage  threw  increased  power  into  the  hands  of 
the  parishes.  But  the  most  important  constitutional 
change  was  one  carried  through  by  the  influence  of 
Bishop  White,  which  introduced  the  novel  principle 
of  lay  representation.  In  consequence  of  these  mod- 
ifications the  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church "  cor- 
responded nearly,  if  not  exactly,  with  the  model 
which  Baxter  declared  would  suit  himself  and  the 
more  moderate  Presbyterians.  Nothing  could  be 
more  marked  than  the  mildness  with  which  the 
claims  of  the  new  church  were  asserted.  The  pop- 
ular prejudice  which  still  lingered  against  the  office 
of  bishop,  and  "  the  fashion  of  objecting  to  it  pre- 
vailing even  among  a  considerable  proportion  "  of 
the  church,  led  to  a  cautious  definition  of  Episcopal 
titles.  The  Convention  of  Maryland,  in  1783,  rec- 
ognized "  other  Christian  churches  under  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution."  The  Virginia  Convention,  two 
years  later,  while  expressing  a  decided  preference 
for  uniformity  in  doctrine  and  worship,  declared 
that  this  should  be  pursued  "  with  liberality  and 
moderation."  Where  the  church,  before  the  Rev- 
olution, had  been  established  by  law,  its  tone  was 
uniformly  most  conciliatory  ;  where,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  had  been  in  opposition,  its  tone  was  most 
pronounced.  The  stanchest  Churchmen  were  in 
Connecticut.  When  Griswold  moved  from  Connect- 
icut to  Rhode  Island,  sermons  which  had  been 
preached  with  applause  in  the  former  State  were 
received  with  "  great  disfavor  "  by  Episcopalians  in 
Providence  and  Newport.     Coke's  friendly  overture 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  249 

to  Bishop  White,  proposing  a  union  of  the  Episco- 
palians with  the  Methodists,  drew  from  the  latter 
the  reply  "  that  he  did  not  think  the  difficulties  in- 
superable, provided  there  was  a  conciliatory  disposi- 
tion on  both  sides."  The  first  evidence  of  a  change 
of  tone  was  the  publication,  in  1804,  of  Hobart's 
"  Companion  to  the  Altar,"  in  which  not  the  nature 
of  the  sacraments,  but  the  "  lawful  authority  "  by 
which  they  might  be  administered,  was  discussed. 
This  provoked  the  memorable  controversy  with  Dr. 
Mason,  in  which  the  distinctive  claims  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  were  for  the  first  time  publicly  set 
forth.  These  were  further  asserted  in  Hobart's 
"  Apology  for  Apostolic  Order,"  published  in  1807. 
The  eminent  personal  qualities  of  Hobart  marked 
him  for  a  party  leader,  and  his  elevation  to  the  Epis- 
copate, a  little  later,  proved  a  signal  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  church.  In  a  Pastoral  Letter  of  18 15 
he  took  strong  grounds  against  cooperation  with 
other  Christians  in  promoting  religious  objects,  and, 
in  defiance  of  a  growing  sentiment  represented  in 
the  formation  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  he 
boldly  declared,  "  That  all  the  differences  among 
Christians  are  on  points  subordinate  and  non-essen- 
tial is  an  unfounded  assertion."  For  a  time  these 
views  found  a  weighty  counterpoise  in  the  Evangel- 
ical party,  but,  by  degrees,  what  was  first  described 
as  "  bold  and  startling  "  came  to  be  accepted  maxims, 
and  by  the  action  of  the  Convention  of  1844  the 
church  was  placed  conclusively  upon  Ho-bart's 
ground.  And  the  decided  growth  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  dates  from  the  period  when  it  clearly  enun- 
ciated its  distinctive  theory.  The  later  controver- 
sies which  have  disturbed  its  peace  have  not  touched 


250  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

this  principle,  and  those  who  differ  most  widely  on 
questions  which  the  Tractarian  and  Ritualist  have 
raised  are  heartily  agreed  upon  what  constitutes  the 
"  Church  of  the  true  Order." 

The  tendency  so  clearly  revealed  of  American 
Christianity  to  aggregate  itself  in  a  few  great  de- 
nominational families,  strenuously  affirming  theo- 
logical or  ecclesiastical  tenets  that  are  mutually  ex- 
clusive, deserves  special  attention  in  its  bearing 
upon  the  prospective  development  of  a  truly  catholic 
type  of  Christianity.  It  might  have  been  supposed 
that  the  contact,  upon  a  perfectly  equal  footing, 
of  so  many  Christian  bodies,  each  zealously  assert- 
ing its  distinctive  faith,  would  have  provoked  such 
mutual  comparison  as  would  gradually  have  brought 
into  clear  relief  the  essential  truths  which  all  were 
agreed  in  recognizing.  Professing  to  receive  the 
same  gospel,  it  might  have  seemed  that  somewhere 
there  must  have  existed  substantial  harmony ;  but 
no  such  result  has  followed.  It  is  amazing  to  note 
how  slight  has  been  the  reciprocal  influence  which 
these  bodies  have  exerted.  They  seem  to  have  pur- 
sued their  separate  paths,  coming  into  contact  with 
each  other's  opinions  only  to  controvert  them.  With 
individuals,  of  course,  changes  of  opinion  have  been 
frequent,  but  so  far  as  concerns  the  formal  affir- 
mations of  the  leading  religious  bodies,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  the  Congregationalists,  there  has  not 
been  the  slightest  change.  With  most  of  these 
bodies  no  modification  has  been  thought  of  ;  in  one 
or  two  cases,  where  the  relaxation  of  some  distinct- 
ive denominational  feature  has  been  suggested,  it 
has  drawn  forth  a  storm  of  indignation.  The  irre- 
ligious world  has  laughed  at  the  spectacle  of  an  emi- 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  25  I 

nent  philanthropist  actually  brought  to  trial  on  the 
atrocious  charge  of  singing  hymns  with  Christians 
of  another  name.  It  is  evident  that  our  leading 
religious  organizations  have  done  nothing  in  the 
way  of  promoting  any  external  Christian  unity. 
There  are  many  to  whom  this  state  of  things  is  not 
repugnant,  who  defend  the  "  denominational  "  type 
of  Christianity  as  the  natural  efflorescence  of  the 
Reformation,  and  rest  content  with  it  as  the  ulti- 
mate achievement  of  Protestant  Christianity.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  have  been  some  who  have  pro- 
tested against  "  the  '  evangelical '  heresy  that  the 
normal  state  of  the  church  universal  is  a  state  of 
schism."  From  many  quarters  have  come  eloquent 
expressions  of  the  conviction  that  the  sectarian  sys- 
tem, however  much  it  may  stimulate  zeal,  does  not 
furnish  the  conditions  of  the  finest  and  noblest 
Christian  culture.  But  no  adequate  remedy  has  thus 
far  been  proposed,  and  American  Christianity  seems 
hopelessly  committed  to  the  denominational  experi- 
ment. 

This  drift  of  American  religious  sentiment  to- 
wards the  formation  of  compact  and  powerful  relig- 
ious organizations  not  only  affects  the  relations  of 
these  bodies  to  one  another,  it  is  already  presenting 
novel  and  difficult  problems  in  relation  to  the  civil 
power.  To  comprehend  fully  the  most  important  of 
these,  it  must  be  remembered  that  for  many  years 
two  antagonistic  opinions  have  been  developing 
themselves  with  respect  to  the  functions  of  political 
society.  On  the  one  hand,  the  maxim  has  been 
steadily  gaining  ground  that  these  functions  are 
purely  secular,  and  in  consequence  the  formal  rela- 
tions between  religion  and  the  state  have  been  every- 


252  RELIGION  *N  AMERICA. 

where  annulled.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  has 
been  a  tendency  as  marked  on  the  part  of  the  civil 
power  to  invade  the  spiritual  province,  by  undertak- 
ing the  support  and  control  of  education.  For  it  will 
hardly  be  denied  that  even  in  its  rudimentary  forms 
education  touches  the  springs  of  spiritual  life.  Pre- 
cisely at  this  point  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
emerges  into  significance  as  an  element  in  our  com- 
plex ecclesiastical  equation. 

The  growth  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which 
according  to  the  census  now  ranks  as  fourth  in  order, 
reckoning  by  number  of  parishes,  but  second  if  church 
property  be  made  the  test,  has  been  viewed  by  some 
with  grave  apprehension,  though,  as  it  would  seem, 
on  insufficient  grounds.  This  great  numerical  in- 
crease can  be  accounted  for  by  our  enormous  foreign 
emigration.  It  has  been  doubted  even  whether  the 
increase  has  kept  pace  with  the  emigration,  and 
whether  the  church  has  not  actually  lost  in  strength 
by  the  transplanting  of  so  many  of  its  members  to 
the  New  World.  There  seems  to  be  no  way  of  ar- 
riving at  any  precise  estimate  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
population  ;  but  if  the  ratio  of  increase  has  out- 
stripped the  aggregate  gain  of  the  nation,  the  same 
would  equally  hold  of  the  larger  Protestant  bodies.  _ 
The  fact  that  the  members  of  this  communion  are 
mostly  congregated  in  great  centres  gives  them  an 
exceptional  local  influence,  and  exaggerates  the  pop- 
ular notion  of  their  actual  power.  Less  fettered  by 
the  civil  authority  than  in  any  other  portion  of 
Christendom,  they  have  shown  a  most  intelligent 
appreciation  of  the  possibilities  of  their  position,  and 
in  zeal  for  ecclesiastical  development  have  certainly 
been  surpassed    by  none  of  the   Protestant  bodies 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  253 

about  them.  And  when  we  contrast  their  condition 
at  the  Revolution,  shut  out  from  political  functions 
in  nearly  every  colony,  and  celebrating  their  atten- 
uated rites  in  a  single  city,  with  their  present  liberty 
and  splendor,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  more  en- 
thusiastic among  them  have  learned  to  look  on 
this  country  as  a  Land  of  Promise.  By  none  among 
us  has  the  full  significance  of  our  political  experi- 
ment been  more  intelligently  grasped  than  by  the 
members  of  this  communion.  For  many  years  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  held  itself  aloof  from  Amer- 
ican society.  Deriving  its  increase  from  a  foreign 
element,  owing  allegiance  to  a  foreign  head,  caring 
nothing  for  the  controversies  that  racked  the  va- 
rious Protestant  bodies,  its  presence  was  felt  only  in 
an  occasional  debate.  It  urged  no  exclusive  claims. 
The  acquisition  of  territory  from  Catholic  states 
added  to  its  importance,  but  it  was  the  impulse  of 
self-development  that  first  brought  it  into  conflict 
with  American  society.  To  insure  that  development 
nothing  was  more  essential  than  that  the  church 
should  control  the  education  of  its  young  ;  and 
strong  at  length  in  consciousness  of  wealth  and 
numbers,  it  boldly  threw  down  its  first  gage,  in  1840, 
by  demanding  the  removal  of  the  Bible  from  com- 
mon schools. 

Had  this  controversy  turned  simply  on  the  read- 
ing of  a  few  verses  of  King  James's  version  at  the 
opening  of  the  daily  exercises,  it  need  have  caused 
no  intelligent  Protestant  embarrassment.  Simple 
justice  would  have  dictated  a  concession  involving 
neither  disrespect  to  the  Almighty  nor  peril  to  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  the  child.  But  the  difficulty  lay 
deeper ;  the  real  grievance  of  the  Catholic  was,  not 


254  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

that  too  much,  but  that  too  little,  religious  instruc- 
tion was  given  in  the  schools  ;  he  dreaded  an  educa- 
tion from  which  all  positive  religious  influence  had 
been  eliminated  ;  he  rejected,  in  other  words,  the 
whole  theory  on  which  the  public-school  system  had 
been  based.  The  attitude  which  he  assumed  fur- 
nishes an  interesting  illustration  of  our  religious 
changes,  since  in  asserting  so  emphatically  the  in- 
dissoluble connection  of  religion  and  education  he 
occupied  precisely  the  ground  of  the  Puritans  of 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  who  gave  the  whole 
system  of  public  education  in  this  country  its  first 
great  impulse.  With  them  the  spelling-book  and 
catechism  always  went  together.  Furthermore,  in 
the  remedy  which  the  Catholic  proposed,  of  propor- 
tioning the  annual  amount  raised  for  school  purposes 
among  the  various  religious  bodies,  he  recalled  the 
identical  arrangement  adopted  in  Massachusetts  to 
meet  a  similar  dilemma  in  providing  for  the  support, 
by  law,  of  public  worship. 

While  it  is  a  wholly  gratuitous  assumption  that 
the  Catholics  in  their  persistent  warfare  against 
public  schools  have  been  actuated  by  any  covert 
hostility  to  those  political  institutions  which  have 
secured  them  such  unparalleled  advantages,  espe- 
cially in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  most  vehement 
denouncers  of  the  system  of  mixed  education  are 
among  the  most  enthusiastic  and  discriminating  ad- 
vocates of  our  civil  polity,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that 
by  the  Papal  Encyclical  of  1864,  which  brands  "  the 
system  of  instructing  youth  which  consists  in  sepa« 
rating  it  from  the  Catholic  faith  and  from  the  power 
of  the  church,  and  in  teaching  exclusively,  or  at  least 
primarily,  the  knowledge  of  natural  things  and  the 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  255 

earthly  ends  of  society  alone,"  as  a  thing  reprobatam, 
proscriptam  atque  damnatam,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  the  United  States  is  irrevocably  com- 
mitted to  conflict  with  a  part  of  our  public  system 
which,  by  the  great  majority  of  our  people,  is  re- 
garded as  absolutely  essential  to  the  perpetuity  of 
our  free  institutions.  This  question  has  been  looked 
at  so  exclusively  from  a  partisan  stand-point,  and  has 
been  so  overwhelmingly  decided  by  popular  opin- 
ion, that  its  ulterior  bearings  have  hardly  received 
enough  attention.  But  a  cursory  glance  will  show 
that  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  religious  and  polit- 
ical society  is  less  simple  than  our  politicians  half  a 
century  ago  supposed.  If  the  popular  opinion  be 
well  grounded,  that  the  temporal  and  spiritual  au- 
thorities occupy  two  wholly  distinct  provinces,  and 
that  to  one  of  these  civil  government  should  be  ex- 
clusively shut  up,  —  a  position  in  which  the  disciple 
of  Mr.  Jefferson  and  the  liberal  Catholic  who  seeks 
to  reconcile  the  doctrines  of  his  church  with  modern 
liberty  are  perfectly  at  one,  —  it  would  be  difficult  to 
make  out  a  logical  defense  of  our  present  system 
of  public  education.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  be  the 
right  and  duty  of  the  state  to  enforce  the  support 
of  public  education  from  a  class  of  the  population 
conscientiously  debarred  from  sharing  its  advan- 
tages, then  our  current  theory  respecting  the  nature 
and  functions  of  the  state  stands  in  need  of  consid- 
erable revision. 

The  theory  of  the  absolute  separation  of  church 
and  state  has  given  rise  to  another  question.  The 
rapid  accumulation  of  ecclesiastical  wealth  is  a  fact 
that  could  not  fail  to  arrest  attention.  By  the  im- 
memorial traditions  of  all  Christian  countries,  such 


256  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

property  has  been  exempted  from  taxation.  When 
the  church  was  a  public  institution,  and  when  the 
benefit  of  its  ministrations  was  freely  open  to  rich 
and  poor  alike,  a  sufficient  reason  existed  for  such 
exemption.  But,  it  is  argued,  the  effect  of  our  vol- 
untary system  has  been  to  render  the  modern  Prot- 
estant church  little  more  than  a  religious  club,  where 
Christians  in  easy  circumstances,  by  paying  an  an- 
nual assessment,  may  listen  once  a  week  to  reason- 
ably good  music,  and  to  such  preaching  as  it  pleases 
the  Lord  to  send.  The  portion  of  the  population 
debarred  by  pecuniary  inability  from  enjoying  this 
soothing  Sunday  relaxation  is  not  inconsiderable  ;  a 
still  larger  number  decline  to  attend  for  other  rea- 
sons. The  enormous  increase  of  our  public  burdens, 
directing  as  it  has,  increased  attention  to  the  princi- 
ples on  which  equitable  taxation  should  be  adjusted, 
has  raised  the  question  whether  those  who  derive 
no  benefit  from  public  worship  should  be  indirectly 
taxed  for  its  support.  That  exemption  is  such  indi- 
rect support,  and  that  so  far  it  tends  to  throw  an 
additional  burden  upon  other  property,  there  needs 
no  argument  to  show.  It  only  differs  from  direct 
support  in  furnishing  the  most  liberal  assistance  to 
those  who  need  it  least.  And  conceding  the  gen- 
eral benefits  that  accrue  to  society  from  the  positive 
institutions  of  religion,  the  question  still  remains, 
Why  should  a  "  purely  political  organism  "  give  even 
an  indirect  support  to  religious  worship  ? 

The  manner  in  which  this  subject  has  been 
handled  affords  striking  evidence  of  the  confused 
and  unsettled  state  of  public  opinion  with  reference 
to  the  relations  of  the  spiritual  and  temporal  power. 
Mr.  Brownson  claims  that  neither  in  politics  nor  in 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  257 

religion  is  it  the  destiny  of  the  United  States  to  re- 
alize any  theory  whatever.  What  the  future  may 
have  in  store  for  us  it  would  be  beyond  the  scope 
of  this  paper  to  predict,  but  a  review  of  our  past 
history  should  incline  us  to  place  a  modest  estimate 
on  our  success. 

"  Time  doth  transfix  the  flourish  set  on  youth." 

He  certainly  would  be  a  very  bold  or  a  very  thought- 
less man  who  would  venture  to  affirm  that  the  ideal 
of  catholic  unity  has  been  reached  in  our  system  of 
"  strenuously  competing  sects,"  or  that  the  problem 
of  church  and  state  has  received  a  final  solution  in 
remitting  public  worship  to  voluntary  support.  At 
the  close  of  a  century  we  seem  to  have  made  no  ad- 
vance whatever  in  harmonizing  the  relations  of  re- 
ligious sects  among  themselves,  or  in  defining  their 
common  relation  to  the  civil  power.  The  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  was  an  interesting  expression  of  indi- 
vidual sentiment  ;  but  in  proclaiming  so  energetic- 
ally that  the  differences  of  religious  sects  were  non- 
essential, it  cut  away  the  limb  on  which  its  whole 
fabric  rested. 

There  are  phases  of  religious  culture  not  touched 
in  the  foregoing  survey  which  also  furnish  marked 
and  significant  tests  of  religious  progress.  A  cen- 
tury ago  the  religious  culture  of  this  country  was 
theological.  The  intellectual  strain  was  in  one  di- 
rection, to  solve  the  solemn  problems  arising  from 
man's  relations  to  his  Maker.  Every  thoughtful 
mind  was  haunted  with  a  sense  of  the  divine  order  of 
the  world  ;  for,  however  weakened  the  social  sway  of 
Puritanism,  it  had  hardly  relaxed  its  tremendous 
grasp  upon  the  spiritual  nature.  The  system  of  doc- 
17 


258  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

trine  almost  universally  accepted  enforced  deliberate 
conclusions  respecting  mysteries  into  which  angels 
might  shrink  from  looking.  To  these  problems  the 
acute  and  venturesome  New  England  intellect  was 
stimulated  by  the  prevailing  methods  of  intellectual 
discipline.  At  Yale  College,  a  century  ago,  logic 
held  the  highest  place  ;  and  from  the  school  where 
Burgerdicius,  Ramus,  Crakenthorp,  and  Keckerman 
were  "  the  great  lights "  came  the  leaders  in  the 
most  distinctively  original  and  vigorous  school  of 
American  religious  thought.  Of  this  school  Sam- 
uel Hopkins  was  the  foremost  representative.  A 
typical  New  England  thinker,  a  sincere  and  noble 
character,  he  deserves  the  veneration  that  is  never 
withheld  from  masculine  independence  and  trans- 
parent honesty.  The  elder  New  England  divines 
were  disciples  of  the  Reformation,  not  of  the  Re- 
naissance ;  they  were  more  concerned  for  accuracy 
of  statement  than  for  polished  diction.  The  quali- 
ties which  have  caused  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  and 
the  Provincial  Letters  to  outlive  all  controversy,  their 
writings  did  not  share.  As  a  consequence,  these 
writings  have  hardly  more  influence  to-day  on  the 
cultivated  intellect  of  New  England  than  the  writ- 
ings of  the  schoolmen.  Their  very  phrases  have 
lost  all  meaning  to  the  men  of  this  generation.  This 
makes  it  less  difficult  to  do  justice  to  their  real 
merit.  While  the  wider  culture  in  our  time  con- 
demns their  intellectual  range  as  narrow,  and  their 
philosophical  method  as  defective,  yet  we  can  never 
mention  but  with  respect  a  school  of  thinkers  who 
so  seriously  grasped  the  great  problems  of  exist- 
ence, and  who,  withal,  dealt  so  honestly  with  them- 
selves in  the  solutions  which  they  attempted ;  who 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  259 

may  have  erred  in  not  accurately  measuring  the 
limits  of  human  thought,  but  who  neither  ignored 
difficulties  nor  paltered  with  terms;  who  had  "no 
sophistry  in  their  mouths,  and  no  masks  on  their 
faces." 

Whether  it  be  understood  as  a  eulogium  or  a 
reproach,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  the  original 
impulses  of  religious  thought  in  this  country  have 
proceeded  almost  wholly  from  New  England.  And 
throughout  all  our  history  no  more  genuine  intel- 
lectual force  has  been  expended  than  was  devoted 
to  theological  discussion  by  the  school  that  began 
with  Hopkins  and  closed  with  Taylor.  Yet  these 
acute  and  powerful  thinkers  have  had  but  little  in- 
fluence on  other  religious  bodies.  With  most  of 
them  they  have  never  come  in  contact,  and  where, 
as  in  one  memorable  instance,  they  seemed  to  effect 
a  lodgment  it  was  only  at  last  to  be  rejected  and 
disowned.  Nor  even  in  New  England  have  they 
retained  their  sway.  They  were  profoundly  meta- 
physical ;  recent  theology  has  become  historical  and 
critical.  It  has  gained  in  breadth,  but  lost  in  intel- 
lectual force  ;  it  is  more  learned,  but  less  original. 
A  striking  illustration  of  the  degree  to  which  the 
theological  intellect  of  New  England  has  lost  its 
relish  for  metaphysical  inquiries  is  furnished  in  the 
fact  that  the  most  acute  vindication  of  the  freedom 
of  the  mind  in  willing,  which  our  generation  has  pro- 
duced is  the  work,  not  of  a  divine,  but  of  one  who 
snatched  from  an  engrossing  business  career  the  op- 
portunities of  literary  labor.1 

The  second  great  phase  of  our  religious  culture 
was  ethical,  and  it    need  hardly  be  added  that  its 

1  Freedom  of  Mind  in  Willing.     By  Rowland  G.  Hazard. 


26o  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

representative  was  Charming.  In  terming  the  first 
epoch  metaphysical  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
Hopkins  denounced  slavery  when  slaves  were  still 
landed  on  the  wharves  of  Newport ;  and  in  terming 
the  second  ethical  we  would  by  no  means  depre- 
ciate the  eminent  intellectual  qualities  of  some  of 
its  early  leaders.  But  it  is  not  less  true  that  when 
the  movement,  which  is  so  imperfectly  described  by 
the  theological  term  commonly  employed  to  desig- 
nate it,  passed  from  its  negative  to  its  positive  stage 
its  note  was  ethical.  The  inspiration  of  Channing 
lay  in  his  noble  "  enthusiasm  of  humanity."  As  a 
scientific  theologian  he  cut  no  deep  lines  on  our 
religious  thought ;  but  as  an  apostle  of  that  benig- 
nant Gospel  which  seeks  in  the  welfare  of  man 
the  highest  glory  of  God  he  must  be  reckoned  a 
star  of  the  first  magnitude  in  our  spiritual  firma- 
ment. His  true  and  abiding  influence  overruns  the 
boundaries  of  sects.  He  was  the  foremost  and  most 
eloquent  propagator  of  that  humanitarian  sentiment 
which  pervades  so  widely  our  modern  life.  The 
force  of  this  sentiment  has  been  by  no  means  ex- 
pended in  specific  philanthropies  and  moral  reforms. 
While  it  has  made  itself  felt  most  decisively  in 
these  directions,  it  has  also  silently  reacted  in 
quarters  where  its  influence  has  been  least  sus- 
pected. The  tone  of  every  Christian  communion 
has  been  affected  by  it.  It  has  widened  the  range 
of  religious  effort,  modified  the  emphasis  of  preach- 
ing, and  even  tinged  perceptibly  the  impulses  of 
missionary  zeal.  The  unmistakable  change  that  has 
come  over  American  Christianity  in  the  disposition 
to  assign  so  much  greater  relative  importance  to 
practical  well-doing,  and  to  recognize  the  relations 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  26 1 

of  the  Gospel  to  the  present  life,  is  due,  in  very 
large  measure,  to  this  more  open  vision  of  "  the  god- 
like in»  the  human."  The  wider  diffusion  of  this 
humane  philosophy  has  been  promoted  by  an  excep- 
tional literary  excellence.  The  qualities  in  which 
the  theological  culture  of  the  former  epoch  was  so 
conspicuously  deficient  became  the  distinctive  char- 
acteristic of  the  second  phase.  Still,  its  success  has 
been  more  evident  in  the  discussion  of  social  ques- 
tions than  in  solving  "  problems  of  the  soul." 

The  most  recent  phase  of  our  religious  culture, 
and  one  that  can  hardly  yet  be  studied  in  its  full  de- 
velopment, is  the  tendency,  so  marked  at  the  pres- 
ent time  among  all  religious  bodies,  which  assigns 
to  sentiment  a  more  prominent  function  in  religion. 
In  its  most  general  aspect,  this  is  part  of  that  great 
reaction  against  a  logical  apprehension  of  Christi- 
anity which  we  have  before  considered,  and  is  the 
result  of  social  development  and  of  a  more  diversi- 
fied civilization.  It  may  be  termed  the  aesthetic 
phase,  although  it  should  be  remembered  that  this 
tendency  even  in  its  most  pronounced  forms  seldom 
usurps  exclusive  control,  being  found  not  unfre- 
quently  allied  with  an  efficient  recognition  of  prac- 
tical religious  duties.  This  aesthetical  revival  is, 
without  doubt,  the  characteristic  feature  of  our  re- 
ligious culture  at  the  present  day.  Were  it  no  more 
than  an  aesthetical  revival  it  would  scarcely  deserve 
notice  in  a  review  of  religious  progress  ;  but  in  its 
most  extreme  manifestations  it  has  an  avowed  con- 
nection with  doctrine ;  and  where  no  such  connec- 
tion consciously  exists  the  tendency  can  hardly  be 
dissociated  from  subtle  modifications  of  religious 
thought.     The  illustrations  of  this  present  phase  of 


262  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

our  religious  culture  are  too  familiar  to  need  more 
than  the  most  passing  mention.     They  are  seen  in 
the  general  disposition    to  affect  a  more  elaborate 
religious  ceremonial,  and  in   the  extraordinary  im- 
pulse   given    to    ecclesiastical    architecture.     That 
these  results  should   be  witnessed  in  religious  com- 
munions which   have  always  recognized  symbolism 
and  ceremonial   as   legitimate  instruments  of  relig- 
ious culture  is  not  surprising,  for,  even  if  carried  at 
times  to  an  extreme,  the  development  is  logical.     It 
works  out  a  principle  which  has  never  been  denied. 
Yet  even  in  these  communions    the  transformation 
is  very  marked.       Things    undreamed  of    even    in 
Hobart's  time  have  long  ceased  to  attract  attention. 
The  first  stained  windows  were  brought  to  this  coun- 
try in  1827,  and  in  the    same  year  we  find  Doane 
urging  the  restoration  of  the  cross  to  churches.     Not 
till  twelve  years  later  did  this  leader  in  ecclesiolog- 
ical  reform  venture  to  suggest  the  propriety  "  of  re- 
moving the  holy  table  back,  and  setting  it  up  a  step 
or  two  upon  the  platform."    At  that  day  a  surpliced 
choir  would  have  excited   consternation.     But  the 
most  conclusive  evidence  of  the  wide  diffusion  of  this 
aesthetic  impulse  is  furnished  in  those  religious  bod- 
ies with  all  whose  traditions  it  is  at  war.     The  ten- 
dency pervades  all  sects,  and  mediaeval  architecture 
is  no  longer,  as   it   once  was,  a  matter  of  principle, 
but  simply  a  question  of  expense.     The  Baptist  and 
the  Methodist  have  learned  to  covet  the  "  dim  re- 
ligious light  "  and  the    "  pealing  organ  ;  "  and  the 
children  of   those  whose   early  history  was  a  stern 
protest   against   the   perilous   alliance  of  faith  with 
any  sensuous  forms,  and  who  refused,  in  their  plain 
meeting-houses,  to  tolerate  so  much  as  the  stated 


RELIGION  IN  AMERICA.  263 

reading  of  the  sacred  volume,  lest  a  spiritual  worship 
should  degenerate  into  a  formal  service,  have  come 
to  listen  with  composure, 

"  under  vaulted  roofs 
Of  plaster,  painted  like  an  Indian  squaw," 

to  such  artistic  "  renderings  "  of  Holy  Writ  as  awaken 
a  bewildered  doubt  whether  Hebrew,  or  Greek,  or 
Latin  be  the  tongue  employed.  Whatever  the  de- 
fects of  religious  teaching  a  century  ago,  it  was  cer- 
tainly a  vigorous  intellectual  discipline.  It  is  not 
easy  to  believe  that  the  substitution  of  such  differ- 
ent methods  is  a  sign  simply  of  a  more  cultivated 
taste. 

From  the  foregoing  review  it  has  been  made  suf- 
ficiently apparent  that  the  function  of  American 
Christianity  has  been  discharged  in  a  moral  and 
practical  rather  than  in  a  scientific  and  theological 
development.  The  scope  of  this  article  does  not 
permit  a  survey  of  our  copious  religious  literature, 
but  such  a  survey  would  undoubtedly  establish  the 
same  conclusion.  The  impulse  of  original  religious 
thought  was  almost  wholly  limited  to  a  single  school. 
As  speculative  has  been  succeeded  by  Biblical  and 
historical  theology,  we  have  drawn  our  best  supplies 
from  a  foreign  source.  Each  of  our  larger  denomi- 
nations is  amply  furnished  with  its  representative 
literature,  but  no  supreme  mind  has  appeared  whom 
all  acknowledge  as  master.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  denominational  training  is  conducive  to 
such  a  result.  Our  most  successful  efforts  have  lain 
in  the  more  popular  discussion  of  religious  truth,  a 
direction  in  which  our  literature  has  been  enriched 
with  more  than  one  admirable  monograph.  At  the 
close  of  the   first  century  of  its  independent  exist- 


264  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA. 

ence,  Christianity  in  this  country,  with  an  undenia- 
ble external  growth  and  a  prodigious  external  activ- 
ity, finds  itself  confronted  with  great  and  perplexing 
problems.  Some  of  these,  as  the  question  how,  under 
our  voluntary  system,  the  Gospel  shall  be  preached 
to  the  poor,  are  incidental  to  the  peculiar  conditions 
of  our  American  religious  life ;  while  others,  as  the 
issue  between  Christianity  and  science,  are  con- 
nected with  the  general  movement  of  modern  civili- 
zation. There  are  not  wanting  many  indications  of 
a  disposition  on  the  part  of  those  who  hold  earnestly 
to  Christianity  as  a  great  historical  fact  to  look  these 
questions  fairly  in  the  face  ;  but  whether,  in  attempt- 
ing to  solve  them,  we  shall  simply  repeat  the  experi- 
ments of  the  Old  World,  or,  rising  to  nobler  modes, 
shall  illustrate  some  deeper  adaptation  of  the  Gos- 
pel to  human  society  and  to  human  thought,  it  re- 
mains for  the  coming  century  to  show. 


UNIVERSITY    CORPORATIONS.1 

1.  Geschichte  des  Romischcn  Rechts  im  Mittelalter.     Von  F.  C.  VON 

Savigny,  Zweite  Ausgabe.     Heidelberg  :  1834. 

2.  Geschichte  der  Pddagogik  vom  Wiederaufbliihen  klassischer  Studien 

bis  auf  unsere  Zeit.     Von  Karl  von  Raumer,  Zweite  Auflage. 
Stuttgart  :   1854. 

3.  The  English   Universities.     From  the  German  of  V.  A.  Huber. 

London  :   1843. 

4.  The  Reorganization  of  the    University  of  Oxford.     By  GoLDWlN 

Smith.     London  and  Oxford  :  1S68. 

5.  Schools  and  Universities  on  the  Continent.    By  Matthew  Arnold, 

M.  A.     London  :  1868. 

The  question  of  University  Reform,  so  long  con- 
fined to  a  discussion  of  the  comparative  advantage 
of  certain  studies,  has,  of  late,  extended  over  a  much 
wider  range,  and  the  general  administration  of  our 
higher  academic  institutions  is  attracting  more  and 
more  attention.  The  efficiency  of  these  institutions 
must  depend  so  largely  upon  the  direction  given  by 
those  intrusted  with  the  supreme  control  that  it  can- 
not but  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  constitution  of 
college  corporations,  instead  of  being  the  last,  should 
not  have  been  the  first,  subject  of  inquiry.  As  a 
contribution  to  a  more  correct  understanding  of  the 
whole  matter,  we  propose  to  review  the  historical 
development  of  these  venerable  bodies,  which,  once 
a  year,  as  the  season  of  our  annual  commencements 
comes  round,  arouse  from  sleep,  and  taste,  for  a  sin- 
gle day,  the  bliss  of  resurrection.     For  they  are  not 

1  Published  in  the  Baptist  Quarterly,  October,  1869. 


266  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

less  the  legacy  of  a  former  age  than  the  mysterious 
parchments  which  express,  in  unknown  terms,  their 
periodic  functions. 

An  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  universities  directly 
opens  one  of  the  most  brilliant  chapters  in  modern 
civilization.  Mr.  Merivale  allows  himself  to  speak, 
in  his  "  History  of  the  Empire,"  of  the  two  great 
universities  of  Alexandria  and  Athens,  but  the  term 
cannot  be  accurately  applied  to  any  of  the  ancient 
schools.  Universities  sprang  out  of  wants  which 
ancient  society  never  felt,  and  were  quickened  with 
a  motion  and  a  spirit  of  which  it  never  dreamed. 
The  Theodosian  code  abounds  in  regulations  re- 
specting education,  yet  affords  no  trace  of  the  ex- 
istence of  any  such  great  corporate  centres  of  intel- 
lectual life  as  we  encounter  at  a  later  period.  After 
the  dissolution  of  the  Western  Empire,  instruction 
gradually  ceased  to  be  a  concern  of  lay  society,  and 
sought  the  fostering  shelter  of  the  Church.  From 
the  fourth  to  the  twelfth  centuries,  the  only  schools 
in  Europe  that  deserved  the  name  were  connected 
with  the  monasteries.  At  that  of  Saint  Medard,  four 
hundred  students  were  gathered  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury. The  vast  schemes  of  social  reconstruction  that 
engaged  the  capacious  intellect  of  Charlemagne  as- 
signed to  education  a  conspicuous  place  ;  but  the 
Austrasian  Caesar  was  before  his  time,  and  his  fa- 
mous palace-school  proved  a  premature  experiment. 

Not  till  the  Feudal  System  had  taken  effectual 
possession  of  Western  Europe  did  that  remarkable 
intellectual  tendency  develop,  which,  under  various 
forms,  has  been  perpetuated  to  the  present  day.  It 
is  in  the  twelfth  century  that  we  must  place  the 
proper  beginning  of    universities,   a  movement  in 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  26j 

which  all  Catholic  and  Feudal  Europe  shared.  For 
it  is  now  well  understood  that  the  true  initial  point 
in  the  intellectual  regeneration  of  the  European 
mind  must  be  sought,  not  in  the  glittering  Italian 
Renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  Gre- 
cian art  and  letters  were  revived,  under  the  benig- 
nant auspices  of  the  Medici,  but  in  an  earlier  move- 
ment, within  the  limits  of  the  proper  Middle  Age. 
Of  this  great  awakening,  the  rise  of  Modern  Lan- 
guages, the  rise  of  Gothic  Architecture,  and  the 
rise  of  Universities  are  the  three  illustrious  mon- 
uments. While,  therefore,  the  secondary  schools 
of  Europe  have  a  long  history,  joining  on,  as  they 
do,  to  the  traditions  of  Roman  culture,  the  univer- 
sities, like  the  free  towns,  must  be  regarded  as  the 
product  of  the  mediaeval  period.  And  that  singularly 
sympathetic  social  state  which,  during  this  period, 
sprung  from  the  mixed  influence  of  Latin  Chris- 
tianity and  the  feudal  spirit,  and  which  made  West- 
ern Europe,  in  effect,  one  community,  explains  their 
rapid  increase  and  their  striking  internal  correspond- 
ence. From  the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  centuries 
they  exercised  a  continuous  and  controlling  influ- 
ence on  the  intellectual,  the  religious,  the  political, 
development  of  the  leading  European  states.  For 
they  were  not  simply  schools  of  instruction  for  the 
young ;  they  were  far  more  teeming  centres  of 
thought  and  study,  where  leading  minds  from  every 
nation  were  drawn  into  eager  and  stimulating  con- 
flict. It  is  not  too  much  to  affirm  that  they  led  the 
way  in  all  the  great  movements  by  which  Western 
Europe  emerged  from  the  Middle  Age.  Whether 
we  consider  the  momentous  revolution  in  modes  of 
apprehending    truth,    betokened    by    the    scholastic 


268  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

philosophy,  that  system  so  aptly  named  by  Frederic 
Schlegel  the  Rationalism  of  the  Mediaeval  Church ; 
or  the  change  in  ecclesiastical  theories  represented 
by  Gerson  in  the  successive  councils  of  Pisa  and 
Constance  ;  or,  what  was  not  less  far-reaching  in  its 
results,  the  essential  modification  of  feudal  monarchy, 
effected  by  the  maxims  of  Roman  jurisprudence,  we 
are  equally  confronted  with  the  everywhere-opera- 
tive influence  of  the  great  mediaeval  universities. 
They  furnished  Philip  the  Fair  the  cruel  weapons 
with  which  he  carried  through  his  relentless  perse- 
cution of  the  Templars  ;  they  undermined,  with  sub- 
tle dialectics,  the  mighty  structure  which  Hildebrand 
and  Innocent  had  built ;  they  wrested  the  mind  of 
Europe  from  its  perilous  subjection  to  tradition,  and 
kindled  the  torch  destined  one  day  to  be  seized  by 
Bacon  and  Descartes. 

The  influence  of  universities,  however  various  the 
direction  which  from  time  to  time  it  followed,  was 
everywhere  essentially  the  same.  For  they  every- 
where presupposed  the  same  spirit  of  intellectual 
in dependence  which  they  everywhere  most  power- 
fully aided  to  develop.  They  were  arenas  for  the 
unrestricted  interchange  of  the  foremost  scientific 
and  philosophic  thought  which  the  age  afforded. 
At  a  time  when  the  art  of  printing  was  unknown, 
.md  when  the  oral  communication  of  ideas  was  the 
most  effectual,  they  rendered  a  service  to  society 
which  finds  its  most  perfect  analogy  in  the  free 
press  of  modern  times.  This  prime  characteristic 
of  unhampered  intellectual  freedom  was  the  secret 
of  their  living  power.  They  were  fields  on  which 
the  master  spirits  of  the  age  were  matched  against 
each  other  ;  not  so  much  like  modern  schools  as  like 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  269 

modern  reviews  and  essays.  They  were  sought  by 
men  of  more  mature  development  than  those  to 
whom  the  designation,  student,  is  now  restricted  ; 
a  circumstance  which  helps  to  explain  some  of  their 
most  striking  internal  features,  and  renders  credible 
the  statements  respecting  the  great  numbers  who 
frequented  them.  Thus  it  is  stated  that,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  the  university  and  those  de- 
pending on  it  made  a  third  part  of  the  population 
of  the  French  capital.  When,  on  one  occasion,  the 
whole  body  went  in  procession  to  St.  Denis,  one  end 
had  reached  the  door  of  the  cathedral  before  the 
other  had  passed  the  city  gate.  The  crowds  at  Ox- 
ford and  Bologna  were  hardly  less.  And,  making 
every  allowance  for  exaggeration,  we  can  well  un- 
derstand how  such  great  multitudes  should  have 
been  drawn  together  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  life 
at  the  university  was  not,  as  with  us,  the  brief  pre- 
lude to  a  wholly  different  career,  but  afforded  the 
very  widest  circle  of  aspiration  and  achievement. 

The  oldest  universities  were  not  foundations,  in 
our  sense ;  that  is,  they  were  not  originally  estab- 
lished by  any  formal  act,  but  arose  gradually  from 
the  voluntary  impulse  of  students  to  gather  about 
some  inspiring  teacher.  He  received  neither  ap- 
pointment nor  support  from  any  authority  above 
him.  His  sole  claim  on  the  attention  of  his  hearers 
rested  on  his  eminence  over  them.  Such  were  Ir- 
nerius  and  Gratian  at  Bologna,  and  William  of 
Champeaux  and  Abelard  at  Paris.  All  these  had 
taught  before  any  legal  incorporation  of  universi- 
ties had  taken  place. 

At  nearly  the  same  time,  that  is,  during  the  first 
half  of  the  twelfth  century,  three  schools,  in  three 


270  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

different  cities,  became  illustrious  in  three  different 
departments  :  Salerno  for  medicine,  Bologna  for  civil 
law,  and  Paris  for  theology.  The  first  of  these,  al- 
though the  most  ancient  of  the  three,  may  be  dis- 
missed from  any  further  mention,  not  only  for  the 
reason  that  very  little  has  been  preserved  respect- 
ing its  early  history,  but  also  because  its  influence 
upon  the  growth  of  later  schools  is  imperceptible. 
But  Bologna  and  Paris  require  particular  examina- 
tion, for  they  were  the  most  illustrious  and  influen- 
tial universities  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  furnished 
the  models  after  which  all  subsequent  institutions 
were  arranged.  In  the  organization  of  these  two 
there  existed,  from  the  outset,  a  striking  difference. 
At  Bologna  the  whole  body  of  students  formed  the 
corporation,  choosing  from  their  own  number  the 
governing  body,  to  which  the  instructors  were  sub- 
jected. At  Paris,  on  the  contrary,  the  professors 
formed  the  corporation,  the  students  having  no 
share  in  university  administration.  Bologna  became 
the  pattern  for  all  the  universities  that  sprang  up 
in  Italy  and  Spain  and  France,  while  Paris  fur- 
nished the  model  to  Germany  and  England.  That 
the  French  universities  should  have  looked  not  to 
Paris,  but  to  Bologna,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  they 
tvere  designed  chiefly  for  the  study  of  Roman  law. 
The  difference  between  Paris  and  Bologna  was  the 
result  in  part  of  the  republican  spirit  of  the  Italian 
city,  and  in  part  of  the  different  nature  of  the 
studies.  For  the  study  of  theology  disposed  the 
mind  to  a  spirit  of  subjection  to  authority,  more  es- 
pecially as  so  many  of  the  students  had  received 
their  early  training  in  the  cathedral  schools. 

We  may  take,  therefore,  these  two  universities  as 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  27 1 

models  of  the  whole  system  which  prevailed  through- 
out Western  Europe,  although  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  they  were  not  exactly  copied,  but,  both  in 
Germany  and  in  England,  received  essential  modifi- 
cations. In  Germany,  especially,  was  this  the  case 
after  the  Reformation,  when  the  universities  adapted 
themselves  with  great  freedom  to  the  new  wants  of 
the  time.  The  Reformation  marks,  in  fact,  the  di- 
viding line  between  the  mediaeval  and  the  modern 
systems. 

The  enthusiasm  of  Italian  antiquaries  has  traced 
the  University  of  Bologna  to  the  reign  of  Tbeodo- 
sius  the  Second.  But,  leaving  the  domain  of  fable, 
it  is  sufficient  reason  for  not  fixing  the  origin  of  the 
institution  with  chronological  exactness  that  it  dates 
from  no  formal  authorization.  The  fame  of  a  great 
teacher  and  the  eagerness  of  students  established 
at  Bologna  a  school  of  civil  law  long  before  any  cor- 
poration had  been  created.  The  university  was  rec- 
ognized, rather  than  established,  by  successive  im- 
perial edicts.  The  first  of  these  was  the  "  Privi- 
lege "  of  Frederic  Barbarossa,  published  at  the  Diet 
of  Roncaglia,  November,  1 1 58.  Although  there  is 
no  mention  in  it  of  Bologna,  yet  there  was  no  other 
city  to  which  it  could  apply.  It  had  a  two-fold  oper- 
ation. In  the  first  place,  foreign  students  were  put 
under  special  protection  of  the  laws.  They  could 
travel  without  restraint  ;  any  injury  done  them  was 
punished  with  unusual  severity  ;  none  of  them  could 
oe  called  to  account  for  the  misdemeanors  or  debts 
of  their  countrymen.  In  the  second  place,  if  ac- 
cused of  crime,  they  had  the  choice  of  being  tried 
Dy  their  teachers  or  the  bishop.  Thus  the  foreign 
students  were  rendered,  in  great  measure,  indepen- 


272  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

dent  of  the  municipal  authorities.  It  is  perfectly- 
clear,  therefore,  that  while  this  "  Privilege  "  of  Fred- 
eric conferred  great  immunities,  it  was  not,  in  any- 
proper  sense,  a  charter.  There  is  no  mention  of 
rector  or  university,  for  the  reason  that  none  as  yet 
existed.  Nor  was  the  act  limited  to  Bologna  only ; 
it  included  any  university  and  any  students  that 
might  afterwards  exist  in  Lombardy.  The  whole 
transaction  strikingly  illustrates  the  manner  in  which 
the  oldest  European  universities  gradually  grew  up. 
It  is  impossible  to  study  it  without  being  reminded 
of  the  similar  manner  in  which  the  most  vigorous 
of  the  free  cities  came  into  being  ;  not  by  any  formal 
charters  of  incorporation,  but  winning  their  liberties 
through  successive  concessions  of  feudal  lords.  The 
universities  were  products  of  a  movement  like  that 
from  which  the  communes  sprang ;  only  in  the  one 
case  it  had  its  origin  chiefly  in  intellectual,  in  the 
other  in  social  and  material,  causes.  In  the  case, 
however,  of  the  Bologna  University,  these  intellect- 
ual and  social  and  material  causes  were  very  cu- 
riously blended. 

To  comprehend  the  causes  of  this  intermixture 
we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  extraordinary  de- 
velopment of  the  study  of  Roman  jurisprudence, 
which  was  seen  in  the  Italian  cities  during  the 
twelfth  century,  and  which  gave  Bologna  its  emi- 
nence as  a  place  of  study,  was  not  the  result  of  ac- 
cident. The  story,  so  long  repeated,  of  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Pandects  at  Amalfi,  has  been  long 
exploded.  Both  the  authorities  relied  upon  to  prove 
it  are  at  least  two  centuries  later  than  the  occur- 
rence they  attest,  and  both  come  to  us  in  a  shape 
exposing  them  to  great  suspicion.     The  older  and 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  273 

more  trustworthy  chronicles  make  no  mention  of  the 
incident.  According  to  another,  though  somewhat 
later,  statement,  the  famous  manuscript  had  been  in 
Pisa  since  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Justinian. 
Either  account  must  be  ranked  with  the  innumera- 
ble fables  with  which  local  patriotism  labored  to 
adorn  the  annals  of  each  petty  Italian  state.  The 
great  revival  of  the  civil  law  was  due,  not  to  any 
accident,  but  to  a  social  and  political  necessity. 
Leaving  aside  the  disputed  question,  on  which  Sa- 
vigny  and  Carl  Hegel  are  so  much  at  variance, 
whether  the  old  Roman  municipalities  were  pre- 
served in  Italy  from  the  fifth  to  the  twelfth  centu- 
ries, there  is  no  ground  whatever  for  supposing  that 
a  knowledge  of  the  codes  had  ever  perished.  And 
when,  during  the  contests  between  the  popes  and 
the  Hohenstauffen  princes,  the  Italian  cities  sud- 
denly sprang  into  new  importance,  experiencing, 
from  their  peculiar  character  as  great  commercial 
centres,  a  variety  of  novel  wants  for  which  the  feu- 
dal legislation  made  no  provision,  the  Justinian  code 
supplied  precisely  what  was  needed.  The  study  of 
Roman  law  was  not  a  mere  literary  or  antiquarian 
diversion  ;  it  met  a  great  public  want.  The  peculiar 
situation  of  the  Lombard  cities,  their  invigorated 
civic  spirit,  the  unaccustomed  and  manifold  relations 
created  by  their  commercial  enterprise,  the  enhanced 
value  imparted  to  personal,  in  distinction  from  real, 
property,  the  endless  and  intricate  questions  con- 
nected with  commercial  law,  were  the  true  reasons 
why  the  refined  system  of  the  Roman  code  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  rude  process  of  the  feudal  tribunals. 
This  circumstance  has  an  important  bearing  as  show- 
ing how  universities,  instead  of  holding  themselves 
18 


274  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

aioof  from  the  tendencies  of  society  about  them, 
were,  in  reality,  created  by  these  very  tendencies. 
Never  was  there  a  more  striking  instance  of  an  at- 
tempt to  apply  science  to  the  practical  concerns  of 
life  than  was  seen  in  the  lectures  of  Irnerius  at  Bo- 
logna, and  never  was  an  institution  in  more  hearty 
sympathy  with  the  leading  movements  of  the  time. 

The  internal  constitution  of  the  university  with 
which  we  are  now  especially  concerned  was  of  gradual 
formation,  having  for  its  basis  a  series  of  statutes 
finally  confirmed  by  Innocent  the  Fourth  in  1253. 
In  accordance  with  a  somewhat  singular  provision, 
these  statutes  were  revised  and  corrected  every 
twenty  years  by  eight  scholars  appointed  for  that 
purpose.  The  slow  development  of  the  system  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  till  near  the  close  of 
the  twelfth  century  that  we  find  any  mention  of  the 
rector,  the  official  head  of  the  university.  The  ju- 
risdiction of  this  officer  was  very  extensive,  and  en- 
tailed endless  disputes  with  the  municipal  authori- 
ties, who  sought  in  vain  to  establish  a  control  over 
him.  His  powers  were  finally  confirmed  by  a  papal 
edict  of  the  year  1224.  After  this  time  the  students, 
singularly  enough,  were  amenable  to  four  jurisdic- 
tions. The  first  was  the  ordinary  local  ;  the  second, 
special,  resting  on  the  Roman  theory  of  a  corpora- 
tion ;  the  remaining  two  were  based  on  the  "  Priv- 
ilege," granted  by  Frederic  Barbarossa.  These  four 
jurisdictions  were  exercised  respectively  by  the  city, 
the  rector,  the  bishop,  and  the  professors.  The  in- 
evitable confusion  arising  from  this  conflict  of  au- 
thority was,  more  than  once,  the  means  of  bringing 
the  university  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  For  the  most 
part,  however,  these  disputes  confirmed  and  ex 
tended  its  immunities. 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  275 

It  should  be  carefully  borne  in  mind  that,  at  the 
outset,  Bologna  was  simply  a  law  school  ;  for  the 
term  "  Universitas "  did  not,  by  any  means,  as  is 
commonly  supposed,  imply  a  seat  of  learning  in 
which  the  four  faculties  of  arts,  theology,  law,  and 
medicine  existed.  Still  less  was  it  used  in  the  Eng- 
lish acceptation  of  a  federal  union  of  many  separate 
colleges.  Bologna  bore  the  name  of  university  for 
two  centuries  before  any  provision  had  been  made 
for  the  study  of  theology,  and  at  Paris  the  Roman 
law  was  not  introduced  until  the  year  1679.  In  the 
same  way,  Salerno  and  Montpelier,  for  a  longtime, 
contained  only  the  faculty  of  medicine.  In  the  tech- 
nical language  of  the  codes,  the  word  "  Universitas  " 
included  both  things  and  persons.  In  the  latter 
sense,  it  denoted  a  plurality  of  persons  associated, 
by  law,  for  a  common  purpose  ;  in  other  words,  a 
corporation.  Thus,  at  Rome,  any  trade  associa- 
tion was  termed  a  university  ;  and,  in  ecclesiastical 
phrase,  the  canons  of  a  cathedral  were  sometimes 
designated  by  the  same  title.  When  applied  to  those 
associated  in  learned  studies,  it  was  originally  qual- 
ified by  the  words  "  magistrorum  et  scholarium  ;  " 
but  in  the  fourteenth  century  these  were  dropped, 
and  the  designation  "  Universitas  "  by  common  con- 
sent applied  only  to  the  higher  schools  of  learning. 

Owing  to  the  enormous  throng  of  students, 
amounting  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, to  ten  thousand,  the  law  school  of  Bologna  was 
divided  into  two  sections,  according  as  the  students 
were  from  Italy  or  from  beyond  the  Alps,  and  to 
both  these  bodies,  the  citramontanes  and  the  ultra- 
montanes,  the  term  university  was  equally  applied. 
In  13 16,  after  a  long  struggle,  medicine  and  philos- 


?y6  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

ophy  were  created  into  a  -distinct  faculty ;  and 
finally,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  a 
theological  school  was  established  by  Innocent  VI. 
This  latter  was  copied  from  the  Parisian  model,  and 
was  therefore  a  Universitas  magistrorwn,  not  scho- 
lariwn.  From  this  time,  Bologna  really  included 
four  universities  :  two  of  civil  law,  one  of  medicine 
and  philosophy,  and  one  of  theology.  Ultimately, 
the  two  schools  of  law  were  combined  in  one. 

If  now  we  examine  this  university  of  law  as  a  cor- 
poration, we  find  that  it  was  composed  of  three  dis- 
tinct classes,  enjoying  three  distinct  kinds  of  aca- 
demic rights.  Full  academic  rights  were  accorded 
only  to  the  foreign  students,  and  these,  when  con- 
vened by  the  rector,  constituted  the  proper  corpo- 
ration. The  students  who  were  natives  of  Bologna 
could  neither  vote  in  this  assembly,  nor  be  elected 
to  any  academic  office.  This  distinction  had  its 
origin  partly  in  the  special  immunities  accorded  to 
foreign  students  by  the  "  Privilege "  of  Frederic, 
and  partly  in  the  legal  relation  of  the  native  stu- 
dents to  the  municipality.  The  university  feared 
that  its  independence  might  be  compromised  by 
intrusting  any  jurisdiction  to  these  students.  The 
professors  held  a  wholly  subordinate  position.  Not 
only  at  their  first  appointment,  but  every  succeed- 
ing year,  they  were  required  to  swear  obedience  to 
the  rector  and  the  students.  For  any  disobedi- 
ence they  were  liable  to  punishment  by  fine,  or  to 
be  deprived  of  the  right  to  teach.  They  could  not 
go  on  a  journey  without  permission  of  the  rector, 
nor  be  absent  more  than  a  week  except  by  consent 
of  the  whole  university.  They  had  no  part  in  the 
university  convocation,  unless  called  to  fill  the  office 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  2J7 

of    rector.      In  all  other  respects  their  rights   and 
duties  were  those  of  ordinary  students. 

The  two  great  bodies  of  law  students  were  further 
divided,  in  accordance  with  a  custom  that  became 
universal,  into  nations  ;  of  which,  at  first,  there  were 
no  less  than  thirty-five.  The  number,  however,  as 
well  as  the  name  of  these  nations  were  subject  to 
constant  changes.  The  German  nation  possessed 
special  privileges,  the  students  being  allowed  to  take 
an  oath,  not  to  the  rector  of  the  university,  but  to 
their  own  procurators.  In  addition  to  these  nations, 
there  were  associations  of  poor  students,  deriving 
support  from  a  common  fund,  which  were  termed 
Collegia.  These  charitable  foundations,  the  germs 
of  the  great  collegiate  establishments  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  never,  at  Bologna,  exercised  any  impor- 
_ant  influence. 

The  rector  was  required  by  statute  to  be  twenty- 
five  years  old,  to  be  unmarried,  and  to  possess  suffi- 
cient pecuniary  means  to  enable  him  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  his  dignity.  It  is  a  striking  evidence 
of  the  lay  influence  prevailing  at  Bologna  that  no 
member  of  any  religious  order  could  be  chosen  to 
the  office.  The  rector,  whose  term  of  office  was 
limited  to  a  single  year,  was  chosen  by  his  immedi- 
ate predecessor,  by  the  counselors  or  representa- 
tives of  the  nations,  each  nation  having  one,  and  by 
certain  electors  appointed  by  the  university  at  large, 
and  selected  from  the  nations  in  a  certain  order. 
The  rector  took  precedence  not  only  over  bishops 
and  archbishops,  but  over  any  cardinals  who  might 
be  enrolled  as  students,  —  a  provision  which  affords 
another  striking  illustration  of  the  difference  be- 
tween a  great  mediaeval   university,  where  men  of 


278  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

all  ages  were  collected,  and  a  modern  seat  of  learn- 
ing. The  ordinary  jurisdiction  of  the  rector  in- 
cluded all  members  of  the  university,  but  was  gen- 
erally limited  to  academic  discipline.  In  more  seri- 
ous cases,  the  municipal  authorities  acted  with  him. 
He  was  also  assisted  by  the  counselors  of  the  na- 
tions, who  formed  an  academic  senate.  The  Ger- 
man nation  was  represented  in  this  body  by  two 
members,  termed  procurators.  The  rights  of  the 
university  were  defended  in  all  outside  tribunals  by 
its  Syndic. 

Nothing  connected  with  the  history  of  university 
corporations  is  more  curious  and  intricate  than  the 
subject  of  academical  degrees.     When  these  were 
first  conferred  cannot  be  ascertained,  but  they  seem 
to    have    been    in    use    at  least  from  the    middle  of 
the  twelfth   century.     The  title  "  doctor,"  literally 
teacher,  implied  no  more  than  that  the  person  bear- 
ing it  had  a  right  to   instruct.      It  seems  a    most 
reasonable  conjecture  of  Savigny    that  the  degree 
was  a  device  for  preventing  unauthorized  persons 
from  claiming  the  immunities  granted  by  the  Em- 
peror Frederic.     The  rank  of  doctor  was  conferred 
by  cooptation,  and  by  the  sole  authority  of  the  re- 
spective faculties,  until   frequent  abuse  caused  the 
Archdeacon    of  Bologna  to    be    joined    with  them. 
Degrees   were   first  granted  only   in  civil  law,    but 
canon  law  and  medicine  soon  followed.     Candidates 
were  examined   both  in  public  and  in  private,  and 
for  each    examination  a   distinct   rank    was    given. 
For  the  canon  law,  siY  years'  study  was  demanded  ; 
for  the  civil,  eight.     The  public  examination  was 
held  in  the  cathedral,  where  the  candidate  delivered 
an  oration,   and  received    his  ring,  book,  and  cap. 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  279 

The  students  and  professors  entered  and  left  the 
cathedral  in  a  procession,  a  custom  which  most 
of  our  American  colleges  retain  to  the  present  day. 
It  is  a  notable  feature  of  the  Bologna  University 
that  women  were  sometimes  admitted,  both  to  its 
honors  and  to  its  offices. 

The  degree  of  doctor  conferred  the  right  to  teach 
not  only  in  Bologna,  but  in  all  schools  of  law,  wher- 
ever established.  Only  such  as  had  received  it 
could  vote  on  the  promotion  of  a  new  candidate. 
Connected  with  the  exercise  of  this  right  there  was 
a  peculiar  condition.  There  were  five  distinct  facul- 
ties, or  associations,  which  regulated  all  promotions 
to  the  academical  degrees.  Although  these  facul- 
ties were  termed  colleges,  they  had  no  connection, 
of  any  kind,  with  the  eleemosynary  foundations  be- 
fore mentioned.  They  were  five  in  number,  corre- 
sponding to  the  faculties  of  civil  and  canon  law, 
medicine,  philosophy,  and  theology.  Admission  to 
the  College  of  Jurists  was  limited  to  natives  of  Bo- 
logna, who  must  also  be  of  Bolognese  descent.  At 
the  head  of  each  college  stood  a  Prior.  They  had 
a  common  place  of  meeting  near  the  cathedral. 

At  the  beginning  there  were  no  foundations  for 
the  support  of  teachers,  but  very  early  we  find  them 
receiving  compensation.  Thus,  in  the  year  1279, 
the  students  agreed  to  pay  a  certain  lecturer  three 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars  in  gold  for  reading  a 
year  on  the  Digest.  In  the  year  1289,  two  profes- 
sorships were  founded,  apparently  with  the  design 
of  attaching  the  professors  more  closely  to  the  uni- 
versity. The  salary  was  paid  by  the  city,  but  the 
professors  were  chosen  by  the  students.  The  elec- 
tion was  only  for  a  year.     A  beginning  having  once 


28o        UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

been  made,  the  number  of  endowed  chairs  constantly 
increased.  The  schools,  or  lecture-rooms,  during 
the  whole  of  the  thirteenth  century,  were  in  private 
houses.  In  the  following  century  public  lecture- 
rooms  were  first  provided  by  the  university.  The 
relation  of  teacher  and  pupil  was  more  exclusive 
than  in  modern  times  ;  students,  for  the  most  part, 
attaching  themselves  to  some  single  master.  Lec- 
tures were  divided  into  ordinary  and  extraordinary, 
a  distinction  which  has  given  rise  to  much  debate, 
but  which  Savigny  has  proved  beyond  doubt  to  have 
had  its  origin,  not  in  the  circumstance  that  some 
were  given  in  public,  and  others  in  private  halls  ; 
still  less  in  the  fact  that  some  were  free,  and  others 
restricted  to  those  students  paying  a  fee  ;  but  in  the 
nature  of  the  subject  treated.  Ordinary  books,  in 
the  phraseology  of  the  civil  law,  were  the  Digest 
and  the  Code ;  all  others  were  extraordinary.  The 
lectures  on  the  former  were  given  in  the  morning; 
on  the  latter,  in  the  afternoon.  Ordinary  professors 
might  lecture  in  the  extraordinary  courses,  but  the 
converse  was  not  permitted.  Besides  lectures,  rep- 
etitions and  disputations  formed  part  of  the  courses 
of  instruction. 

The  other  universities  of  Italy  differed  from  that 
of  Bologna  in  no  essential  particular,  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  University  of  Naples,  which,  both 
in  the  circumstances  of  its  founding  and  in  its  in- 
ternal administration,  formed  a  marked  exception 
to  all  the  rest.  For,  instead  of  springing  from  a 
great  social  necessity,  and  receiving  its  sh^pe  from 
the  free  development  of  the  relation  between  pupil 
and  instructor,  it  owed  its  origin  and  its  distinctive 
characteristics  to  the  will  of  a  single  man.     The 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  28 1 

Emperor  Frederic  the  Second,  perhaps  the  most  ex- 
traordinary character  in  the  whole  range  of  the 
Middle  Age,  who  cultivated  all  liberal  arts  with  the 
same  ardor  with  which  he  wooed  the  dark-eyed 
daughters  of  the  East,  decided  in  the  year  1224  to 
found,  in  Naples,  a  school  of  all  the  sciences,  and 
on  a  far  more  comprehensive  plan  than  had  been, 
as  yet,  anywhere  attempted.  Since,  in  his  contests 
with  the  Lombard  cities,  Frederic  had  conceived  a 
prejudice  against  all  kinds  of  corporate  immunities, 
Naples  was  allowed  neither  rector  nor  university  of 
students.  The  supreme  oversight  was  entrusted  to 
the  chancellor  of  the  kingdom  ;  all  appointments 
and  promotions,  as  well  as  the  direction  of  the  lec- 
tures, being  in  his  hands.  Degrees  obtained  at 
other  universities  received  no  recognition  ;  for  ad- 
mission "  ad  eundem,"  new  examinations  were  in 
every  case  required.  Yet,  with  all  this  pretension 
to  superiority,  and  with  the  most  strenuous  support 
that  the  government  could  give,  Naples  accom- 
plished far  less  than  any  of  her  rivals.  Although 
the  claim  has  been  put  forth,  in  her  behalf,  that,  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  she  was  the  only  proper  uni- 
versity in  Europe,  her  influence  was  always  insig- 
nificant. The  genius  of  an  enlightened  but  arbitrary 
ruler  could  not  supply  the  place  of  the  free  intellect- 
ual impulse  which  found  such  full  scope  in  the  re- 
publics of  Northern  Italy. 

If  now  from  Bologna  we  turn  to  Paris,  the  type 
of  another  class  of  universities,  the  model  which 
Germany  and  England  copied,  we  are  struck  with 
essential  differences,  —  differences  which  may  be  ex- 
plained in  the  circumstances  in  which  each  had  its 
origin.     Bologna  grew  up  in  a  republic  ;  her  leading 


282  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

function  was  to  expound  those  legal  principles  which 
the  wants  of  a  free  commercial  state  had  clothed 
with  new  significance.  Paris,  on  the  contrary,  owed 
all  her  greatness  to  theology,  and,  naturally,  assim- 
ilated the  temper  of  the  church.  She  was  the  great 
Middle  Age  university  ;  where  Abelard  and  Peter 
Lombard  taught  ;  where  Roger  Bacon  and  Aquinas 
and  Dante  studied  ;  to  which  Henry  II.  of  England 
was  willing  to  refer  his  memorable  dispute  with 
Becket  ;  to  which  Christendom  itself  was  ready  to 
defer  in  the  great  schism  of  the  West.  "  Nos  fuimus 
simul  in  Galandia  "  was  a  password  among  scholars 
throughout  Europe,  and  it  was  deemed  sufficient 
ground  for  any  academic  regulation  to  add  the 
words  "  quemadmodum  in  Parisiensi  studio." 

While  there  seems  no  reason  for  doubting  that, 
for  two  centuries  after  the  death  of  Charlemagne, 
Paris  was  frequented  for  purposes  of  study,  a  reg- 
ular succession  of  instructors  can  be  deduced  only 
from  the  time  of  William  of  Champeaux,  who  opened 
a  school  of  logic  in  the  year  1109.  The  oldest  doc 
uments  relating  to  Paris  as  a  seat  of  study  are  two 
decretals  of  Pope  Alexander  III.,  the  earliest  of 
which,  dated  1180,  was  directed  against  the  prac- 
tice of  exacting  fees  for  licenses  to  teach.  An  or- 
dinance of  Philip  Augustus,  of  the  year  1200,  makes 
the  first  mention  of  a  rector.  The  division  into 
four  nations  existed  as  early  as  1206.  And  lastly, 
in  a  decretal  of  Innocent  III.,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  title  "  Universitas "  is 
first  applied.  The  papal  sanction  was  indispensable 
for  an  institution  in  which  theology  was  the  lead- 
ing study.  By  a  decretal  of  Nicholas  IV.,  near  the 
close  of  the  same  century,  it  was  ordained  that  de« 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  283 

grees  at  the  University  of  Paris  should  confer  sim- 
ilar privileges  in  every  country  of  Christendom. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  University  of  Paris,  the 
first  thing  to  be  remarked  is,  that  from  the  begin- 
ning there  was  only  a  single  body,  so  that  we  find 
nothing  of  the  distinction  between  independent  cor- 
porations existing  in  Bologna.  A  second  point  of 
difference  was  that  the  administration  was  wholly  in 
the  hands  of  the  instructors,  the  students  enjoying 
no  participation.  To  the  general  governing  assem- 
bly belonged,  originally,  all  who  had  received  the 
degree  of  doctor  or  of  master,  and  these,  for  a  long 
time,  were  identical  with  the  actual  teachers.  When, 
however,  it  gradually  became  the  custom  for  many 
to  take  a  degree  who  did  not  intend  to  teach,  the 
right  to  sit  in  the  university  assembly  was  restricted, 
as  a  rule,  to  those  performing  the  duty  of  instruc- 
tion. In  this  peculiarity  of  her  constitution  lay  the 
chief  ground  of  the  great  influence  which  Paris  ex- 
ercised. For  while  the  Italian  universities  made  it 
their  chief  aim  to  secure  the  freedom  of  the  stu- 
dents and  to  call  eminent  professors,  the  University 
of  Paris  took  part  in  great  theological  controver- 
sies, pronouncing  her  opinion  as  one  organic  body. 
This  thorough  academic  unity,  which  could  never 
have  existed  had  the  whole  body  of  her  students 
taken  part  in  her  deliberations,  enabled  her  at  times 
to  fling  a  tremendous  weight  into  the  scale  of 
European  authority.  Her  influence  was  direct  and 
undivided. 

From  a  very  early  period  the  students  were  divided 
into  four  nations,  the  French,  the  English,  the 
Picard,  and  the  Norman  ;  and  these,  in  turn,  were 
subdivided    into  a  multitude  of    provinces.     Thus, 


284  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

the  English  nation  embraced,  besides  England  and 
Germany,  Hungary,  Poland,  and  the  Northern  king- 
doms. In  these  nations  the  professors  and  students 
were  alike  reckoned,  without  any  distinction  of 
special  faculties.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  the  university  became  involved  in  a 
bitter  strife  with  the  new  mendicant  orders,  and  as 
a  result,  the  doctors  of  theology  were  erected  into 
a  distinct  body.  The  doctors  of  canon  law  and 
medicine  soon  followed  the  example.  From  this 
time  the  university  was  made  up  of  seven  distinct 
bodies :  the  four  nations  and  the  three  faculties. 
The  faculties  were  governed  by  their  deans,  the 
nations  by  their  procurators.  The  four  nations 
were,  in  fact,  the  university,  and  with  them  the 
choice  of  rector  rested.  So,  also,  the  students  and 
bachelors  of  all  the  faculties  were  considered  as  be- 
longing to  the  nations,  the  faculties  being  made  up 
of  doctors  only.  In  the  course  of  time  this  rela- 
tion was  much  modified,  and  the  four  nations  came 
to  be  reckoned  together  as  a  fourth  faculty,  that  of 
arts.  But  they  still  retained  the  original  control 
over  the  election  of  the  rector. 

In  the  internal  organization  of  the  Paris  Uni- 
versity the  colleges  deserve  particular  attention. 
These  were  at  the  outset,  as  in  Italy,  mere  founda- 
tions for  the  support  of  the  poorer  class  of  students  ; 
but,  by  degrees,  they  were  greatly  multiplied,  be- 
coming not  simply  foundations  for  the  poor,  but 
boarding-houses  for  the  rich,  so  that  at  last  it  was 
the  exception  to  live  out  of  college,  such  students 
being  known  as  martinets.  As  these  were  less 
amenable  to  discipline  than  college  students,  the 
legislation   of   the  university  was  turned  especially 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  285 

against  them.  The  oldest  and  most  famous  of  these 
colleges,  the  Sorbonne,  was  founded  in  1250.  These 
differed  wholly  from  the  English  colleges  in  being 
appropriated,  for  the  most  part,  to  single  faculties. 
Thus,  the  theological  faculty  was  collected  at  the 
Sorbonne.  Regent  masters  were  nominated,  by  the 
several  faculties,  to  lecture  in  the  colleges,  and,  in 
the  course  of  the  fifteenth  century,  instruction  in 
the  colleges  came  almost  wholly  to  supersede  the 
university  lectures  given  in  the  public  schools. 

The  head  of  the  university,  as  in  the  Italian  uni- 
versities, was  the  rector,  who  must  be  single,  and 
held  his  office  at  first  for  four  weeks,  but  after  the 
year  1279  for  three  months.  He  was  chosen  by 
electors  named  for  that  purpose  by  the  four  nations. 
The  rector,  with  the  four  procurators,  constituted 
the  ordinary  government  of  the  university.  He  was 
only  eligible  from  the  faculty  of  arts. 

The  fact  that  the  university  was  situated  partly 
within  the  diocese  of  Paris,  and  partly  within  the 
abbey  jurisdiction  of  St.  Genevieve,  was  the  occa- 
sion of  an  important  modification  in  the  manner  of 
conferring  degrees.  For  it  had  always  been  the 
prerogative  of  a  bishop  to  grant  licenses  to  teach 
within  his  diocese,  and  the  same  power  was  claimed 
by  abbots  within  their  territories.  The  exercise  of 
this  power  was  usually  delegated  by  the  bishop  or 
abbot  to  his  chancellor.  Hence  it  followed,  at  Paris, 
that  promotions  to  all  degrees  must  be  made  with 
the  concurrence  of  these  officers  ;  the  chancellor  of 
the  church  of  St.  Genevieve  being  the  chancellor  of 
the  faculty  of  arts,  and  the  chancellor  of  the  diocese 
of  Paris  of  the  remaining  three  faculties,  and  there- 
fore considered,  in  general,  chancellor  of  the  univer- 


286  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

sity.  But  while  the  chancellors  regulated  the  con- 
ferring of  degrees,  they  had  no  power  whatever  to 
interfere  in  other  departments  of  administration. 

In  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  there  arose 
among  universities  a  violent  prejudice  against  the 
study  of  the  civil  law.  In  councils  held  during  that 
century  the  study  was  repeatedly  interdicted  to 
monks,  a  prohibition  extended,  in  the  next  century, 
to  the  whole  body  of  the  clergy.  From  this  preju- 
dice arose  the  remarkable  decretal  of  Honorius  III.  in 
1220,  by  which  all  lectures  on  Roman  law  were  for- 
bidden in  Paris  and  its  immediate  neighborhood. 
Theology  and  arts  were  the  glory  of  the  univer- 
sity. 

The  time  when  academical  degrees  were  first  con- 
ferred at  Paris  is  uncertain.  According  to  some 
they  were  coeval  with  the  university,  while  others 
hold  that  they  were  borrowed  from  Bologna.  The 
earliest  degrees  were  those  in  arts.  In  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century  the  course  of  study  requisite 
for  obtaining  the  degree  of  bachelor  of  arts  covered 
three  years  and  a  half.  The  candidate  was  next 
required  to  devote  an  equal  period  to  the  study  of 
philosophy,  and,  if  he  passed  his  examination,  re- 
ceived a  license  to  teach  the  seven  liberal  arts.  The 
seven  arts  were  the  Trivium,  including  grammar, 
rhetoric,  and  dialectic  ;  and  the  Quadrivium,  includ- 
ing arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy,  and  music. 
"This,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "was  the  liberal  ed- 
ucation of  the  Middle  Age,  and  it  came  direct  from 
the  schools  of  ancient  Rome."  To  obtain  the  de- 
gree of  doctor  of  divinity  the  candidate  must  have 
studied  philosophy  for  seven,  or  if  he  belonged  to 
a  religious  body  for  six,  years.     An  additional  pro- 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  287 

bation  of  nine  years  was  then  required,  so  that  the 
student  must  have  been  at  least  sixteen  years  con- 
nected with  the  university.  Salaried  professors 
were  not  known  at  Paris  until  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. The  university,  as  a  corporation,  was  always 
poor,  never  possessing  any  public  buildings  of  its 
own  ;  but  schools  were  provided  for  the  several  fac- 
ulties, and  the  endowments  of  some  of  the  colleges 
were  very  large. 

With  the  sole  exception  of  the  restriction  relative 
to  the  study  of  the  civil  law,  the  University  of 
Paris  was  a  centre  of  the  freest  intellectual  activity. 
Like  her  sister  of  Bologna  she  owed  her  vast  influ- 
ence to  her  vital  sympathy  with  the  movements  of 
the  age.  Her  glory  culminated  in  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries.  When,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  she  became  false  to  her  own  traditions,  and 
refused  to  assimilate  the  new  studies  of  the  Renais- 
sance, she  rapidly  fell  from  her  proud  position  at 
the  head  of  European  culture.  The  splendid  foun- 
dation of  Francis  the  First,  the  only  institution 
that  kept  pace  with  the  progress  of  the  sciences, 
was  not  connected  with  the  university. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  focus 
of  free  thought  in  Europe  was  the  newly-founded 
University  of  Wittenberg.  Since,  however,  the 
German  universities,  so  far  as  their  organization 
was  concerned,  were  copies  of  that  of  Paris,  they 
require  no  special  explanation.  The  only  important 
difference  consisted  in  the  fact  that  in  Germany 
the  college  system  never  attained  any  development. 
In  all  the  older  universities  there  existed  Bursse  ; 
but  these  were  simply  funds  for  the  support  of  poorer 
students.  There  was  no  provision  made  for  common 
residence 


288  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

The  two  great  universities  of  England,  whatever 
may  have  been  their  origin,  unquestionably  derived 
from  Paris  the  model  of  their  corporate  organization. 
During  all  their  early  history,  this  similarity  con- 
tinued very  striking.  Thus,  at  Oxford,  the  students 
were  lodged  in  private  houses,  as  at  Paris  and  Bo- 
logna ;  and  the  business  of  instruction,  instead  of 
being  confided  to  an  exclusive  body,  was  shared  by 
the  graduates  at  large.  The  division  into  nations 
also  continued  for  a  time,  but  fell  into  disuse  on  ac- 
count of  the  small  proportion  of  foreign  students. 
A  reminder  of  this  original  division  is  still  preserved 
in  the  two  proctors.  The  degrees  and  the  condi- 
tions of  bestowing  them  were  also  similar  to  those 
of  Paris.  The  earliest  application  of  the  term  "  Uni- 
versitas  "  to  Oxford  was  in  1201,  earlier  than  any 
instance  where  it  is  known  to  have  been  applied  to 
Paris.  The  first  formal  charter  of  privileges  was 
granted  to  Oxford  in  1224,  and  to  Cambridge  in 
1 29 1,  although  legal  instruments  recognizing  the 
existence  of  the  universities  are  found  of  an  earlier 
date.  Both  Oxford  and  Cambridge  obtained  a  con- 
firmation of  their  privileges  from  the  Holy  See. 

Since  Oxford  stood,  originally,  within  the  diocese 
of  Lincoln,  the  bishop,  as  in  the  case  of  Paris,  claimed 
the  right  to  interfere  in  university  affairs  ;  but,  in 
the  reign  of  Edward  First,  a  violent  dispute  arose, 
which  resulted  in  the  entire  emancipation  of  the 
university  from  episcopal  jurisdiction.  A  similar 
dispute  between  Cambridge  and  the  Bishop  of  Ely 
led,  although  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  to  the  same 
result. 

The  more  pronounced  ecclesiastical  character  of 
the  English  universities  is  shown  in  the  absence  of 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  289 

a  rector,  an  officer  who,  on  the  Continent,  was  the 
embodiment  of  the  civil  or  lay  influence.  The  head 
both  of  Oxford  and  of  Cambridge  was  the  chancel- 
lor, a  dignitary  elected  by  the  general  body  of  grad- 
uates, but  requiring  the  confirmation  of  the  bishop. 
The  office  was  held  for  a  short  period,  and  was  al- 
ways conferred  on  a  resident  ecclesiastic.  The  uni- 
versities were  accustomed,  at  the  beginning  of  each 
new  reign,  to  solicit  a  confirmation  of  their  privi- 
leges. By  the  act  of  the  thirteenth  Elizabeth,  all 
charters,  liberties,  and  privileges  granted  to  both 
universities  were  expressly  confirmed,  and  their  le- 
gal constitution  settled.  The  two  institutions  were 
known  to  law  as  "  The  Chancellor,  Masters,  and 
Scholars  of  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge." 

Meantime,  an  internal  revolution  had  been  grad- 
ually accomplished,  which  was  destined  not  only  to 
subvert  the  constitution  of  the  universities,  but  to 
change  entirely  the  methods  of  instruction.  This 
was  the  extraordinary  development  of  the  collegiate 
system,  to  which  the  Continental  universities  pre- 
sent nothing  parallel.  The  colleges  of  Paris  were, 
it  is  true,  richly  endowed  corporations  ;  but  they 
never  supplanted,  and  never  aimed  to  supplant,  the 
university.  In  England,  on  the  contrary,  the  uni- 
versities came,  by  degrees,  to  be  mere  associations 
of  colleges.  This  remarkable  transformation  can  be 
most  clearly  traced  at  Oxford. 

At  Oxford,  as  in  the  case  of  Paris,  the  colleges 
had  been  originally  founded  for  the  support,  and 
better  discipline,  of  the  poorer  class  of  students. 
In  the  absence  of  the  control  supplied  by  the  far 
more  efficient  organization  of  the  nations  at  Paris 
19 


290  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

and  Bologna,  the  need  of  some  such  arrangement 
was  more  keenly  felt.  At  first,  the  number  of  these 
charitable  foundations  was  very  small,  in  comparisorf 
with  the  halls  where  students  were  simply  furnished 
with  cheap  lodgings.  At  the  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  while  there  were,  about  three  hun- 
dred halls,  there  were  only  three  colleges.  All  that 
was  needed  to  establish  a  hall  was  that  a  few  stu- 
dents should  agree  to  live  together,  with  some  re- 
spectable graduate  as  their  master.  Simply  the 
sanction  of  the  chancellor  was  needed  to  make  the 
arrangement  binding.  The  distinction  between  col- 
leges and  halls  consisted  in  the  possession,  by  the 
former,  of  endowments.  On  this  account,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  colleges  in- 
creased, while  the  halls  rapidly  diminished  ;  so  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth,  while  the  number 
of  halls  had  fallen  to  fifty-five,  the  number  of  col- 
leges had  increased  to  twelve.  It  had  now  become 
an  established  rule  that  all  students  should  be  con- 
nected with  some  hall  or  college.  The  colleges, 
which  originally  had  admitted  only  on  the  founda- 
tion, now  began  to  receive  other  students.  To  com- 
prehend the  cause  of  the  rapid  increase  of  the  wealth 
and  influence  of  the  colleges,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  each  college  was  a  distinct  corporation,  gov- 
erned by  its  own  laws,  and  controlling  its  own  funds. 
The  college  consisted  of  a  head,  variously  styled 
Provost,  Master,  Rector,  President,  Principal,  or 
Warden  ;  a  body  of  Fellows,  who  usually  elected  the 
head  from  their  own  number  ;  and  a  certain  number 
of  scholars,  or  students,  on  the  foundation.  In 
nearly  all  the  colleges,  there  were  also  exhibitioners, 
who  received  annual  stipends,  either  from  the  col- 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  2gl 

lege  funds  or  from  the  endowed  schools  where  they 
had  been  prepared.  Thus,  it  was  inevitable  that  a 
corporate  spirit  should  be  developed.  The  Fellows 
and  students,  naturally,  came  to  look  upon  the  in- 
terests of  the  particular  colleges  to  which  they  were 
attached  as  more  important  than  the  interests  of  the 
university.  The  common  and  intimate  academic 
life  could  result  in  nothing  else.  So  that,  in  the 
course  of  time,  what  had  been  simply  a  contingent 
and  accessory  element  came  to  absorb  all  the  rest. 

The  gradual  subversion  of  the  university  was  ef- 
fected in  two  ways.  While,  in  the  beginning,  the 
general  academic  administration  had  been  in  the 
hands  of  the  regents,  under  which  designation  were 
included  all  who  had  acquired  the  right  to  teach,  the 
colleges  were  now  gradually  intrusted  with  exclu- 
sive functions.  The  university  retained  the  exam- 
inations and  the  degrees  ;  but  the  real  work  of  in- 
struction passed  to  the  colleges,  partly,  no  doubt,  in 
consequence,  as  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  remarks, 
of  the  decline  of  the  scholastic  philosophy,  and  the 
rise  of  the  classical  studies,  which  the  colleges  took 
up.  By  the  statutes  of  Leicester,  the  heads  of 
houses,  with  the  doctors  of  the  three  higher  facul- 
ties and  the  two  proctors,  were  constituted  a  body, 
to  which  was  conceded  the  prior  discussion  of  all 
measures  proposed  in  convocation ;  and,  by  the  sub- 
sequent statutes  of  Laud,  an  absolute  initiation  was 
given  to  the  heads  and  proctors,  thus  making  the 
heads  of  the  colleges,  in  fact,  the  masters  of  the  uni- 
versity. Thus  it  happened  that  a  form  of  govern- 
ment, originally  elastic  and  allowing  a  free  develop- 
ment, was  exchanged  for  a  system  in  which  local 
and  collegiate  interests  stood  always  in  the  way  of 


292  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

any  comprehensive  changes.  To  make  the  domin- 
ion of  the  new  powers  more  complete  the  two  proc- 
tors, who,  from  the  beginning,  had  been  chosen  by 
the  whole  body  of  the  graduates,  were  now  elected, 
in  rotation,  by  the  colleges.  This  final  step  in  the 
administrative  revolution  converted  what  had  been 
a  great  university  into  a  mere  aggregation  of  private 
corporations.  It  sufficiently  explains  the  intellect- 
ual torpor  which  prevailed  at  Oxford  for  the  two 
centuries  following,  —  a  torpor  in  such  shameful  con- 
trast with  her  early  history. 

For,  by  these  changes,  the  university  instruction, 
although  not  formally  abolished,  was  yet  completely 
paralyzed.  The  whole  influence  of  the  heads  of 
houses  was  thrown  in  favor  of  the  college  tutors, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  university  professors.  At- 
tendance on  the  university  lectures,  except  as  a 
mere  form,  was  not  required,  even  for  university 
degrees.  The  stimulating  influence  of  great  minds, 
in  eager  contact  with  new  truth,  was  thus  wholly 
lost.  The  right  of  teaching,  once  belonging  to 
all  graduates,  was  restricted  to  a  single  class.  The 
public  universities  became  private  schools.  And 
since,  in  consequence  of  the  mediaeval  statutes  with 
which  most  of  the  colleges  were  saddled,  all  gradu- 
ates, save  those  of  one  profession,  were  excluded 
from  position,  it  followed  that  all  studies  not  con- 
nected with  that  profession  were  neglected.  The 
once  famous  faculties  of  law  and  medicine  found  a 
refuge  at  the  inns  of  court  and  the  London  hospi- 
tals. Even  theology,  under  the  depressing  influence 
that  prevailed,  lost  all  genuine  scientific  impulse. 
The  two  great  English  universities  became  univer- 
sities only  in  name. 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  293 

It  is  a  most  significant  circumstance,  in  the  his- 
tory of  higher  education  in  this  country,  that  just 
at  the  crisis  when  the  great  revolution  in  the  Eng- 
lish universities  was  completed  the  earliest  Amer- 
ican colleges  came  into  being.  Harvard  College, 
with  its  corporation  of  seven  persons,  a  President, 
Treasurer,  and  five  Fellows,  was  simply  a  copy  of 
the  model  with  which  all  the  leading  clergy  of  the 
colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  were  well  acquainted. 
At  a  time  when  the  college  had  supplanted  the  uni- 
versity, it  was,  naturally,  a  college  that  they  essayed 
to  plant.  Notwithstanding  the  arguments  which 
the  late  President  Ouincy  advances  in  his  "  His- 
tory," there  seems  no  good  reason  for  supposing 
that  the  term  "  Fellows,"  as  used  in  the  charter  of 
1650,  is  to  be  understood  in  any  other  sense  than 
that  familiar  to  those  who  used  it.  By  usage,  how- 
ever, the  title,  in  the  course  of  time,  ceased  to  be 
limited  to  resident  instructors,  and  a  distinction 
came  to  be  established  between  resident  and  non- 
resident Fellows :  the  former  being  known  as  Fel- 
lows of  the  house  ;  the  latter,  as  Fellows  of  the  cor- 
poration. This  distinction  was  recognized  in  the 
year  171 2,  when  Joseph  Stevens  was  elected  Fellow 
of  the  house.  When,  however,  nine  years  later, 
Sever  and  Welstead  claimed  seats  in  the  corpora- 
tion, on  the  ground  of  being  engaged  in  actual  in- 
struction, the  claim  was  denied.  As  soon  as  the 
distinction  between  Fellows  of  the  house  and  Fel- 
lows of  the  corporation  had  become  thus  fixed,  the 
general  direction  of  the  college  passed  into  the  hands 
of  a  body  of  non-residents,  —  a  change  which  led  to 
the  most  important  results  in  the  constitutional  form 
of  all  American  colleges.     In  consequence  of  this 


294  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

change,  the  original  significance  of  the  term  "  Fel- 
low "  has  been  wholly  lost ;  for  the  power  of  confer- 
ring degrees,  the  sole  distinctive  prerogative  re- 
tained by  the  Fellows  of  an  American  college,  was 
never  possessed  by  the  Fellows  of  an  English  col- 
lege. In  the  charter  of  Brown  University,  granted 
by  the  General  Assembly  of  Rhode  Island,  in  1764, 
the  original  quality  of  the  Fellows  is  in  some  meas- 
ure preserved.  They  are  not  only  constituted  a 
"  learned  faculty,"  but  are  charged  with  "  the  in- 
struction and  immediate  government  of  the  col- 
lege." With  a  singular  disregard  of  the  plain  in- 
tent of  the  charter,  this  duty  of  immediate  supervision 
has  been  wholly  renounced  by  the  board  of  Fellows, 
and  is  understood  to  be  committed  to  an  anomalous 
body,  the  executive  board,  made  up,  indifferently,  of 
Fellows  and  Trustees. 

The  origin  of  this  latter  body,  which,  in  many  of 
our  more  recently  founded  colleges,  has  entirely  ab- 
sorbed the  functions  of  the  Fellows,  was  as  follows : 
Before  the  corporation  of  Harvard  College  had 
been  created,  there  existed  a  board  of  overseers, 
consisting  of  the  governor,  deputy-governor,  and 
magistrates,  together  with  the  teaching  elders  of  the 
six  next  adjoining  towns.  These  were  intrusted 
with  the  general  duty  of  supervision,  which,  in  Eng- 
land, was  exercised  by  Parliament.  But  their  du- 
ties were  simply  of  supervision,  not  of  direct  admin- 
istration. They  could  only  approve  or  reject  the 
propositions  of  the  board  of  Fellows.  This,  too,  is 
the  theory  of  the  functions  of  the  Trustees  in  the 
charter  of  Brown  University.  The  Fellows  have  the 
exclusive  right  to  make  and  publish  all  laws  and 
statutes  for  the  instruction  and  government  of  the 


UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS.  295 

college  ;  but  these  laws  are  not  valid  unless  ap- 
proved by  the  Trustees.  While,  however,  at  Har- 
vard the  rights  of  the  "  corporation,"  or,  in  other 
words,  the  Fellows,  have  been  carefully  preserved 
amid  all  changes  of  the  overseers,  at  Brown  the 
Fellows  have  lost  their  character  as  a  body  charged 
with  the  instruction  and  immediate  government  of 
the  college,  and  become,  with  the  single  exception 
of  granting  degrees,  merged  with  the  Trustees.  In 
many  colleges  no  board  of  Fellows  exists. 

As  a  result  of  this  extended  examination,  it  ap- 
pears that  academic  governments  have  undergone  a 
complete  transformation.  Beginning,  in  Italy,  with 
intrusting  to  students  and  graduates  the  whole 
charge  of  administration,  it  ends,  in  America,  with 
excluding  graduates  from  all  share  in  academic  gov- 
ernment ;  committing  the  entire  authority  to  a  more 
or  less  numerous  body  of  non-residents,  who  not 
only  need  not  be  graduates  of  the  institution  which 
they  control,  but,  in  many  cases,  lack  the  qualifica- 
tion of  a  liberal  education.  Taking  for  our  model 
the  English  colleges,  just  at  the  time  when  the  Eng- 
lish colleges  were  at  their  worst,  we  have  preserved, 
even  then,  but  the  shell  of  the  system,  carefully  es- 
chewing all  its  valuable  features.  For  the  Fellows 
of  an  English  college  were  at  least  men  of  culture, 
and  were  directly  concerned  in  promoting  the  inter- 
ests of  the  body  with  which  they  were  connected. 
The  history  of  higher  education  in  Europe  begins 
with  universities.  The  colleges  were  a  later  and 
subordinate  growth.  In  this  country  it  has  been 
precisely  the  reverse.  We  begin  with  colleges  ;  and 
are  now,  at  least  in  the  case  of  Yale  and  Harvard, 
endeavoring  to  engraft  universities  upon  them.    But, 


296  UNIVERSITY  CORPORATIONS. 

whether  it  be  our  object  to  have  a  good  college  or 
a  good  university,  it  is  clear  that  our  present  corpo- 
rate system  stands  in  need  of  thorough  revision. 
No  substantial  progress  can  be  hoped  for  until  this 
is  done. 


SERMONS. 


THE   SON   OF   MAN.1 


And  he  saith  unto  him,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Hereafter 
ye  shall  see  heaven  open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  de- 
scending upon  the  Son  of  Man.  — John  i.  51. 

In  this  striking  passage,  Jesus  for  the  first  time 
applies  to  himself  the  title  of  "  Son  of  Man."  It 
has  here  an  emphasis  more  marked  because  Nathan- 
iel had  just  addressed  him  as  "Son  of  God."  The 
terms  would  seem  to  be  used  antithetically,  as  in- 
volving correlative  ideas,  and  as  needing  to  be  ex- 
plained from  their  reciprocal  relation.  Both  titles 
are  used  in  the  Old  Testament  as  designations  of 
the  Messiah,  yet,  clearly,  the  two  are  not  mere  syn- 
onyms. Unless  we  conceive  that  the  language  of 
Scripture  is  used  with  unparalleled  looseness*  we 
must  regard  the  terms  as  designed  to  describe  the 
Messiah  in  two  distinct  and  peculiar  aspects  of  his 
nature. 

The  phrase,  Son  of  God,  which  Nathaniel  em- 
ployed was  the  one  in  most  common  use  among 
the  Jews,  as  it  best  embodied  the  Jewish  conception 
of  the  Messiah's  dignity.  That  "  Son  of  Man  "  was 
not  a  familiar  title  of  the  Messiah  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  when  Jesus,  on  one  occasion,  re- 
ferred to  his  own  approaching  death  as  Son  of  Man, 
the  Jews,  in  seeming  doubt  whether  He  spoke  of  the 

1  Written  in  1861. 


300  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

Messiah  in  a  manner  that  accorded  so  little  with 
their  own  expectations,  asked,  "  Who  is  this  Son  of 
Man  ?"  Yet  this  less  familiar  and  perplexing  phrase 
is  the  one  under  which  the  Saviour  most  frequently 
describes  himself.  He  that  sowed  good  seed  was 
the  Son  of  Man.  As  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in 
the  wilderness,  so  must  the  Son  of  Man  be  lifted 
up.  It  was  the  Son  of  Man  who  had  not  where  to 
lay  his  head  ;  the  Son  of  Man  who  had  power  to  for- 
give sins  ;  the  Son  of  Man  who  should  suffer  many 
things ;  the  Son  of  Man  who  should  be  betrayed  ; 
the  Son  of  Man  who  should  rise  from  the  dead,  who 
should  come  again  in  glory,  who  should  judge  the 
world. 

It  must  have  been,  therefore,  with  some  special 
meaning  that  Jesus  so  continually  employed  this 
term  ;  its  reiterated  and  emphatic  utterance  forbids 
any  other  supposition.  The  antithesis  between  it 
and  the  title  "Son  of  God  "  implies  clearly  a  refer- 
ence to  Christ's  human  nature.  Yet  to  say  that  it 
implies  no  more  than  that  Christ  was  a  man,  to  make 
it  mean  simply  "the  mortal"  or  the  "incarnate," 
fails  wholly  to  account  for  the  frequent  and  peculiar 
use  which  the  Saviour  makes  of  it.  The  phrase  itself 
would  seem  borrowed  from  the  prophet  Daniel,  when, 
in  visions  of  the  night,  he  saw  one  like  the  Son  of 
Man  come  with  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  the  Ancient 
of  Days,  and  dominion  and  glory  were  given  Him  ; 
but  just  as  Jesus  gave  to  the  phrase  Son  of  God  a 
meaning  far  more  profound  than  that  attached  to  it 
in  current  Jewish  usage,  so  to  this  He  gave  a  sense 
unhinted  in  prophetic  symbols.  Accordingly,  it  can 
only  be  from  his  own  use  of  the  phrase  that  we  can 
declare  his  deep  consciousness  of  its  significance. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  301 

In  his  words  to  Nathaniel,  the  obvious  meaning  of 
our  Saviour  is  that  in  Him,  as  Son  of  Man,  human 
nature  shall  be  glorified ;  the  figure  of  ascending 
and  descending  angels  implies  that  its  fellowship 
with  heavenly  powers  will  in  that  way  be  restored. 
When,  in  another  place  He  says  to  Nicodemus,  "  No 
man  hath  ascended  up  to  heaven  but  He  that  came 
down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  Man  which  is 
in  heaven,"  He  as  clearly  teaches  that  human  nature 
in  its  highest  form  is  capable  of  dwelling  with  God  ; 
when,  again,  He  declares,  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh 
and  drink  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man,  ye  have  no 
life  in  you,"  his  words  can  only  mean  that  man  must 
become  partaker  of  his  perfected  humanity  ;  and 
when,  again,  He  tells  us  that  to  Him  all  judgment 
has  been  committed  because  He  is  the  Son  of  Man, 
we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  his  perfected 
humanity  will  be  the  standard  with  which  the  hu- 
man race  will  be  compared.  These  illustrations  are 
enough  to  show  us  the  breadth  of  meaning  which 
the  phrase  included. 

The  title- could  not,  therefore,  have  been  employed 
by  Christ  to  express  the  bald  fact  that  He  had  a  hu- 
man nature  ;  on  many  occasions  when  He  used  the 
phrase,  such  expression  was  uncalled  for ;  nor  could 
those  who  were  with  Him  day  by  day,  who  saw  Him 
and  heard  his  voice,  have  needed  such  frequent  re- 
minding of  a  fact  so  obvious  His  reiterated,  pecul- 
iar indication  of  this  aspect  of  his  nature  could  have 
sprung  only  from  a  consciousness  of  some  deeper 
alliance  with  humanity. 

We  infer  that  the  phrase  "  Son  of  Man "  desig- 
nates the  human  nature  of  Christ  in  its  most  com- 
prehensive character ;  not  the  mere  human  as  dis- 


302  THE  SON  OF  MAN. 

tinct  from  the  divine,  but  Christ  in  the  whole  breadth 
of  his  relations  to  the  race  ;  as  embodying  the  eter- 
nal archetype  of  man  ;  illustrating  not  simply  an  in- 
dividual, but  a  generic  being ;  manifestation,  as  much 
of  the  fullness  of  man  as  of  the  fullness  of  God  ;  not 
more  an  incarnation  of  divinity  than  stature  of  a 
perfect  humanity. 

We  must  believe  that  Christ's  frequent  use  of  the 
title  "  Son  of  Man"  sprung  from  this  profound  con- 
sciousness of  a  relation  to  the  whole  race  of  Adam. 
Nor  need  we  dread  the  imputation  of  borrowing 
from  Alexandrian  mysticism,  when  we  thus  impute 
to  Him,  who  did  not  shrink  from  declaring,  "  Before 
Abraham  was,  I  am,"  a  recognition  of  his  arche- 
typal being.  Christ  was,  by  preeminence,  the  Son 
of  Man,  as  He  was  that  image  of  the  race  which  had 
dwelt  from  eternity  in  the  creative  mind ;  the  first- 
born of  the  whole  creation  ;  that  ideal  standard,  with 
reference  to  which  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth 
had  been  created,  whether  they  be  thrones,  domin- 
ions, principalities,  or  powers ;  the  Word  by  which 
all  things  were  made,  and  without  which  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made.  Thus,  the  pattern, 
by  which  the  first  Adam  was  created,  in  this  second 
Adam  was  restored.  In  him  was  summed  up  and 
once  more  brought  together  its  manifold  perfection. 
As  the  first  man  had  been  of  the  earth,  earthy,  so 
this  second  man  was  the  Lord  from  heaven.  How 
luminous,  in  the  thick  mystery  that  shrouds  our  lit- 
tle lives,  this  light  of  primeval  day  !  How  serene 
and  spotless  in  the  noise  and  jar  of  life  stood  this 
Son  of  Man,  in  every  act  giving  a  silent  rebuke  to 
men ;  Son  of  Man,  yet  unrecognized  by  men ;  Son  of 
Man,  yet  rejected  of  men  ;  Son  of  Man,  yet  redeem- 


THE  SON  OF  MAN.  303 

ing  and  judging  men  !  What  insight  into  the  actual 
state  of  men,  what  mark  of  their  short-coming  and 
shame,  is  set  before  us  in  this  manifestation  of  the 
great  original ! 

We  miss  a  signal  aspect  of  the  Messiah's  nature 
when  we  miss  this  significance  which  He  claimed 
for  himself  as  Son  of  Man.  The  ancients  fondly 
fancied  that  in  each  human  soul  there  lingered  rem- 
iniscences of  an  earlier  and  purer  being  ;  but  it  is 
not  a  poet's  dream  when  we  behold  in  Christ  the 
intimation  of  an  earlier  purpose,  looking  from  the 
marred  ruins  of  many  generations  to  this  unblem- 
ished archetype,  gazing  back  from  cloudy  night  to 
the  clear  and  unruffled  dawn.  In  the  Son  of  Man, 
related  as  He  was  to  the  race,  the  capacities  of  hu- 
man nature  were  meant  to  be  set  forth  ;  in  Him 
were  presented  the  proportions  of  a  perfected  hu- 
manity, the  summit  level  of  the  years.  Gazing  back 
upon  Him  with  fullest  persuasion  of  his  uncreated 
being,  we  are  still  to  bear  in  mind  that  that  being 
was  identical  with  ours  ;  that  even  with  his  eternal 
dwelling  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father  was  coupled 
this  relation  to  the  whole  race  He  was  destined  to 
redeem.  In  the  Son  of  Man  the  dignity  of  genuine 
manhood  was  thus  vindicated  ;  the  native  ore  came 
out  in  contrast  with  all  the  base  counterfeits  that 
had  buried  it  up.  The  majesty  of  the  inner  life,  the 
incomparable  worth  of  the  spiritual  nature,  the  lus- 
tre of  unselfish  love,  —  all  these  shone  forth  in  con- 
trast with  the  meanness,  the  brutality,  the  slavery 
to  sense,  into  which  the  human  race  had  fallen. 

Note,  in  passing,  how  varied  and  contrasted  this 
affluent  completeness  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  how  un- 
bending in  his  integrity,  but  how  ready  to  forgive ; 


304  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

how  separate  from  sinners,  yet  how  touched  with 
their  infirmities  ;  how  profound,  yet  how  simple,  in 
his  teachings ;  his  thoughts  absorbed  in  heavenly 
things,  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  in 
ceaseless  ministry  upon  Him,  yet  making  his  abode 
with  the  friendless  and  the  outcast,  not  neglecting, 
even  when  seated  by  the  dusty  wayside,  to  tell  a 
wretched  woman  of  the  water  of  life  !  How  meek, 
but  how  brave  ;  how  mild,  but  how  manly  !  In  his 
various  completeness  how  each  phase  of  human  na- 
ture, how  every  type  of  character,  faith,  steadfast- 
ness, fidelity,  tenderness,  obedience,  may  find  some 
congenial  feature,  marked  as  He  is  by  such  opposite 
excellences,  exercising  each  in  due  season :  now 
driving  money-changers  from  the  temple  ;  now  sub- 
mitting himself  to  be  scourged  ;  now  refusing  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  ;  now  crowned  in  mockery 
with  thorns  ;  led  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  yet 
Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  ! 

With  what  fullness  of  meaning,  then,  is  this  phrase 
invested  !  Nathaniel  had  hailed  Jesus  as  the  Mes- 
siah of  the  Jews.  "  Thou  art,"  he  cried,  "  the  Son 
of  God,  Thou  art  the  King  of  Israel!"  But  Jesus 
gave  him  promise  of  a  more  open  vision  ;  not  of  the 
Jew's  Messiah,  heir  of  the  glories  of  one  race,  but 
of  the  second  Adam,  the  head  of  the  new  creation. 
It  was  not  on  the  Son  of  David,  but  on  the  Son  of 
Man,  that  he  should  see  the  angels  of  God  ascend- 
ing and  descending.  The  vision  promised  to  this 
guileless  Israelite  is  the  vision  of  all  perfect  faith, 
the  recognition  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  grand 
scope  of  his  relations  to  the  human  race  ;  as  corre- 
sponding in  the  fullness  of  his  being  with  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  humanity ;  as  identified  with  each 


THE  SON  OF  MAN.  305 

one  of  us  in  his  manifold  completeness  ;  as  involv- 
ing in  this  mystery  of  his  uncreated  glory  the  ideal 
of  that  stainless  manhood,  that  in  the  dispensation 
of  the  fullness  of  time  shall  be  gathered  together  in 
Him. 

I.  From  this  view  of  Christ's  relation  to  the  race 
we  must  infer  that  our  reasonings  respecting  human 
nature  should  rest  on  the  Son  of  Man  as  their  cen- 
tral point.  We  must  recognize  Him  as  the  sole  his- 
toric expression  of  human  nature  in  its  complete- 
ness. Only  through  the  knowledge  of  Him  can  we 
know  ourselves.  He  is  the  fixed  point  of  depart- 
ure from  which  every  measurement  must  be  made. 
What  is  essential,  what  is  right,  what  is  desirable  in 
man,  we  have  set  before  us  in  Christ. 

And  what  comment  on  the  insufficiency  and  un- 
trustworthiness  of  mere  human  philosophy  is  afforded 
in  the  fact,  that  from  all  famous  inquiries  into  human 
nature  Christ  has  been  omitted  ?  In  the  systems 
that  have  long  reigned  supreme  we  search  in  vain 
for  an  analysis  of  the  character  of  Jesus.  By  a 
kind  of  common  consent,  the  only  being  who  affords 
any  adequate  insight  into  the  mystery  of  man,  who 
unveils  alike  the  glory  and  the  shame,  is  put  aside 
as  undeserving  philosophic  study.  Of  subtle  dis- 
sections of  human  nature  in  its  actual  working  we 
have  enough.  Montaigne,  Hobbes,  Hume,  and  a 
host  of  inferior  students  have  explained  its  intricate 
windings,  and  sought  to  fathom  its  secret  depths. 
We  have  had  on  the  one  hand  those  who  would  im 
prison  human  nature  in  direful  fate ;  on  the  other 
those  who  would  absolve  it  from  all  recognition  of 
superior  laws,  those  who  would  strip  man  of  his 
Bpiritual  nature,  and  those  who  deny  him  any  mate- 


20 


306  THE  SON  OF  MAN. 

rial  being.  So,  too,  we  have  been  flooded  with  pre- 
tentious theories  of  human  progress ;  with  wide- 
spread inductions  respecting  human  destiny  based 
on  presumed  facts  of  experience  ;  with  elaborate 
codes  of  ethics  drawn  from  man's  actual  conscious- 
ness of  moral  distinctions  ;  with  plans  of  reform  and 
imagined  perfect  states,  all  developed  in  entire  un- 
consciousness of  Him  in  whom  alone  are  any  hopes 
of  human  progress,  any  hints  of  human  destiny,  any 
absolute  and  indisputable  moral  intuitions. 

Theology,  in  part,  must  be  held  responsible  for 
this,  by  exalting  the  Son  of  Man  above  that  race 
whose  nature  He  expressed,  and  creating  an  impass- 
able gulf  between  Redeemer  and  redeemed.  In  her 
zeal  to  enthrone  the  Lord  of  Life  above  all  prin- 
cipality and  power,  and  all  that  may  be  named  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,  faith  has  been  at  times  forget- 
ful that  it  was  the  Son  of  Man  whom  the  dying 
Stephen  saw  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and 
whom  John  beheld  in  Apocalyptic  glory.  Recog- 
nizing Christ  as  the  type  of  unfallen  human  nature, 
as  man  originally  formed  in  the  image  of  his  Maker, 
we  must  be  pierced  with  the  dismal  sense  of  our 
short-coming ;  we  must,  as  the  contrast  is  drawn  out 
between  himself  and  us,  be  appalled  at  the  distance 
we  have  wandered  from  our  Father's  house ;  for  the 
unstained  life  of  the  Son  of  Man  is  a  sorer  judg- 
ment on  our  actual  state  than  was  ever  proved  by 
the  most  sober  moralist  or  hissed  out  in  the  most 
stinging  satire. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  man's  normal  nature  is  seen 
in  Christ,  and  not  in  us.  In  our  sweeping  condem- 
nation of  human  nature  as  the  world  reveals  it,  let 
us  not  blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  world  but 


THE  SON  OF  MAN.  307 

partially  and  dimly  shows  it  ;  our  estimate  of  human 
nature  is  sadly  incomplete  if  we  omit  that  Son  of 
Man  in  whom  alone  it  was  perfectly  displayed.  His 
spotless  excellence  not  less  truly  illustrates  man 
than  all  the  sin  and  misery  and  guilt  we  mourn.  It 
is  this  sense  of  a  common  nature,  of  a  nature  whose 
essential  qualities  and  capabilities  no  sin,  degrada- 
tion, nor  long  centuries  of  alienation  have  rooted 
out,  that  establishes  the  sympathy  between  us  and 
the  Son  of  Man.  Without  this  there  were  for  us  no 
redemption.  Because  He  is  Son  of  Man  is  He  Sav- 
iour of  the  world.  We  may  believe  that  this  phrase 
was  so  often  on  his  lips,  because  He  would  have 
men  feel  that  with  all  their  sin  He  was  not  ashamed 
to  call  them  brethren. 

In  the  Son  of  Man  as  revelation  of  man's  real 
nature  we  have  illustrated  at  once  man's  greatness 
and  misery.  The  perplexing  thing  in  human  na- 
ture is  that  in  the  same  breast  are  pent  up  conflict- 
ing tendencies.  There  is  an  endless  war  of  im- 
pulses ;  a  choosing  of  evil,  but  an  enforced  appro- 
bation of  the  good  ;  the  soul  seeking  to  deceive  itself 
in  vain  ;  a  sense  of  better  things  that  overrides  all 
flatteries  of  the  heart,  all  sophisms  of  the  under- 
standing, attesting  the  nobler  man.  "  Philosophers," 
says  Pascal,  "  never  furnish  men  with  sentiments 
suitable  to  these  two  states.  They  inculcate  a  no- 
tion either  of  absolute  grandeur  or  of  hopeless  deg- 
radation, neither  of  which  is  the  true  condition  of 
man.  Consider  all  the  great  and  glorious  aspira- 
tions which  the  sense  of  so  many  miseries  is  not 
able  to  extinguish,  and  inquire  whether  they  can  pro- 
ceed from  any  other  save  a  higher  nature.  Had 
man  never    fallen    he  would  have  enjoyed  eternal 


308  THE   SON  OF  MAN. 

truth  and  happiness ;  had  man  never  been  otherwise 
than  corrupt  he  would  have  retained  no  idea  of 
truth  or  happiness." 

II.  Our  promise  for  the  future  is  in  the  Son  of 
Man.  As  He  restored  the  effaced  image,  so  was  He 
the  harbinger  of  our  hereafter.  For  He  tenanted  his 
fleshly  tabernacle  not  to  torment  us  with  the  retro- 
spect of  an  irremediable  past,  but  to  introduce  the 
new  creation.  In  Him  the  latent  capacities  of  that 
creation,  that  was  groaning  and  travailing  for  re- 
demption, were  set  forth.  As  Son  of  Man,  He  held 
out  to  man  the  hope  of  partaking  in  his  glorified 
nature.  This  was  the  purpose  hid  in  Him  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world.  The  Word  made  flesh,  was 
the  living  corner-stone  of  the  new  temple  in  which 
we  are  builded  together  for  an  habitation  of  God. 
The  Son  of  Man  opened  for  us  the  gates  of  this  glo- 
rious and  unending  race.  In  Him  was  the  pledge 
of  a  final  completing  and  glorification  of  man  that 
no  fancies  of  human  reform  had  reached.  In  his 
manifestation  of  human  nature  in  its  original  form, 
was  revealed  at  the  same  time,  the  goal  towards 
which  we  tend  ;  himself  the  forerunner  of  his  peo- 
ple, his  life  a  prophecy  of  that  perfect  man  to  which 
they  should  come  at  last.  And  it  is  because  the 
Son  of  Man  is  that  herald  and  forerunner  of  a  per- 
fected race,  because  in  the  very  fact  of  his  humanity 
is  involved  this  issue,  that  it  is  held  up  as  the  aim 
of  all  true  disciples  to  be  fashioned  more  and  more 
like  unto  his  glorious  body  ;  for  He  was  not  the  sole 
secret  of  this  comprehensive  purpose,  but  the  first- 
born among  many  brethren.  If  this  language  be 
not  a  delusive  mockery  of  our  wants,  it  must  imply 
that  Christ,  the  second  Adam,  foreshadows  the  new 
creation,  at  once  its  head  and  harbinger. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  309 

Such  was  the  Son  of  Man ;  with  this  breadth  of 
comprehensive  meaning  did  He  wear  the  title  ;  him- 
self the  central  point  of  man's  checkered  history, 
the  full  light  illuminating  the  eternal  purpose  that 
was  heralded  by  the  strains  of  morning  stars,  and 
shall  be  celebrated  in  its  consummation  by  the  song 
of  Moses  and  the  Lamb. 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day  ; 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be  ; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 

When  Pilate  led  Jesus  forth  wearing  the  crown 
of  thorns  and  the  purple  robe,  he  cried  to  the  angry 
mob  before  him  :  "  Behold  the  Man  ! "  But  in  a 
sense  far  deeper  than  the  Roman  governor  intended 
they  saw  the  man  ;  not  the  despised  and  hated  Naza- 
rene  alone,  the  man  of  sorrows,  who  had  not  where 
to  lay  his  head,  but  the  man,  —  the  man  whose  un- 
throned and  unsceptred  manhood  shamed  the  craft 
of  priestly  spite  and  cowardice  of  kingly  power. 

Behold,  then,  the  man,  not  as  they  saw  Him, 
marred,  scourged,  spit  upon,  but  as  He  stands  re- 
vealed in  his  real  nature  ;  as  He  rises  in  glorified 
majesty  over  all  the  accidents  of  time ;  as  He  re- 
bukes with  his  completeness  the  hollow,  partial,  dis- 
torted manhood  that  received  Him  not  ;  as  He  rules 
more  and  more  the  increasing  purpose  that  runs 
through  the  ages ;  as  He  sits  exalted  over  each  loft- 
ier reach  of  redeemed,  regenerated  souls,  crowned 
in  endless  adoration  as  Lord  of  all. 

Behold  the  man,  you  who  are  emulous  of  genuine 
manhood ;  you  who  prize  what  is  real  and  essential 
above  factitious  rank ;  you  who  recognize  the  worth 
of  your  spiritual  being,   and   would    school    it   dis- 


310  THE  SON  OF  MAN. 

creetly  for  its  great  hereafter.  See  in  this  Son  of 
Man  the  pledge  and  promise  of  your  destiny,  if  only, 
like  Him,  you  learn  how  much  greater  and  nobler  it 
is  to  minister  rather  than  to  be  ministered  unto ;  to 
seek  not  your  own  glory,  but  the  glory  of  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Let  the  world's  heroes  go  ;  they  strut  their  brief 
hour  on  the  stage,  and  then  vanish  like  a  dream,  and 
their  pomp  and  circumstance  go  with  them.  They 
bring  nothing  into  the  world,  and  'tis  certain  they 
carry  nothing  out.  The  Son  of  Man  made  himself 
of  no  reputation,  and  took  on  Him  the  form  of  a  ser- 
vant, to  show  how  separate  from  such  outward  trap- 
pings is  the  real  man  ;  how  little  the  great  ends  of 
our  earthly  being  depend  on  these  things  that  the 
nations  of  the  world  seek  after. 

I  say  to  you,  as  Philip  to  Nathaniel,  "  Come  and 
see."  Outwardly  the  Christian  life  of  self-denial,  of 
humiliation,  of  meek  endurance,  of  secret  well-doing, 
of  abstinence  from  worldly  aims,  of  mortified  ambi- 
tion, of  unappreciated,  often  misrepresented,  merit, 
may  seem  to  have  in  it  little  that  it  should  be  de- 
sired ;  but,  unseen  by  human  eye,  over  such  a  life 
the  heavens  are  open,  and  on  it  angels  of  God  con- 
tinually descend. 


CHRIST,    THE   WAY,   THE   TRUTH, 
AND    THE    LIFE.1 


Jesus  said  unto  him,  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life.     No 
man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me.  — John  xiv.  6. 

The  separate  clauses  of  this  suggestive  text  of 
Scripture,  so  charged  with  the  consciousness  of  di- 
vine authority,  are  not  to  be  taken  as  mere  emphatic 
repetitions  of  one  statement ;  they  embody  distinct 
characteristics  of  the  work  of  Christ.  Thomas  had 
said  unto  Him,  "  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  Thou 
goest,  and  how  can  we  know  the  way?"  Jesus,  as 
was  his  wont,  instead  of  directly  answering  the  in- 
quiry of  his  follower,  comforts  him  with  a  truth 
larger  and  broader  than  he  had  dreamed  of.  Thomas 
was  evidently  thinking  of  some  literal  way  by  which 
the  Saviour  would  depart.  Jesus  endows  the  word 
with  a  deep  spiritual  sense,  connecting  it  at  the  same 
time  with  distinct,  yet  essentially  related  and  coordi- 
nated truths.  "  I,"  said  He,  "  am  the  Way,  the  Truth, 
and  the  Life  : "  the  spiritual  Way,  by  which  every 
soul  must  walk  to  come  to  the  perfect  truth  ;  the 
Truth,  which  every  soul  must  believe  to  attain  eternal 
life  ;  the  Life,  which  every  soul  must  share  to  know 
the  power  of  faith  and  the  fellowship  of  the  heavenly 
societies.  No  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by  this 
threefold  experience  :  threefold,  yet  one  ;  essentially 

1   Written  in  1867. 


3  1 2     CHRIST,   THE  WA  V,   THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFE. 

distinct,  yet  always  combined  together  ;  at  once 
practical,  logical,  experimental  ;  appealing  to  every 
side  of  human  nature  ;  enlisting  equally  the  will,  the 
understanding,  the  affections  ;  covering  the  whole 
man,  embracing  every  aspect  of  his  wonderfully 
fashioned  structure,  fitted  to  all  his  wants  alike. 
The  example  to  be  followed,  the  doctrine  to  be  ac- 
cepted, the  spiritual  experience  to  be  tasted,  —  these 
are  the  harmonious  parts  of  that  complete  and  per- 
fect discipline  which  is  the  inexorable  condition  of 
attaining  unto  life  eternal.  "I,"  said  the  Saviour, 
"  am  all  this.  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but 
by  me." 

I.  Christ  is  the  Way.  In  what  precise  sense,  let 
us  ask,  does  Jesus  say  this  ?  Nothing  at  first  sight 
could  seem  simpler  than  such  a  figure.  The  Scrip- 
tures furnish  abundant  illustration  of  its  use.  "The 
Lord,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  knoweth  the  way  of  the 
righteous."  "  Search  me,"  was  his  prayer,  •'  and 
know  my  heart,  and  lead  me  in  the  zvay  everlasting." 
"  The  ways  of  wisdom,"  says  the  wise  man,  "  are 
ways  of  pleasantness  ;"  and  our  Saviour  himself,  in 
a  memorable  passage,  uses  the  same  figure  when 
He  contrasts  the  broad  way  that  leadeth  unto  death 
with  the  narrow  way  that  leadeth  unto  life.  Nor  is 
there  reason  to  suppose  that  in  the  text  the  word  is 
introduced  in  any  distinctive  or  peculiar  sense.  In 
all  these  passages,  and  in  many  more  that  might  be 
quoted,  the  word  "  way  "  is  a  synonym  for  course  of 
conduct.  It  is  this  that  the  Lord  knows  and  searches ; 
it  is  this  that  has  in  it  the  awful  issues  of  life  and 
death.  When,  therefore,  our  Lord  calls  himself 
the  Way,  it  is  not  his  meaning  that  He  has  opened 
a  way  for  us,  but  that  the  course  of  conduct  which 


CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     313 

his  life  exemplified  is  to  be  the  example  and  the 
pattern  of  our  lives.  This  was  his  own  obvious 
meaning  when  He  said,  "  If  any  man  will  be  my  dis- 
ciple, let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross 
and  follow  me."  "  My  sheep  hear  my  voice  and  fol- 
low me."  "  If  any  man  serve  me,  let  him  follow  me." 
Follow  Him,  not  in  the  literal  sense  of  tracking 
his  steps  as  He  went  about  from  city  to  village, 
and  from  village  to  city,  despised,  unheeded,  re- 
jected, not  knowing  where  to  lay  his  head  ;  not  even 
in  the  sense  of  going  with  Him  in  sorrowful  com- 
panionship to  the  upper  chamber,  the  garden,  the 
judgment  hall,  the  cross.  Men  might  do  all  this, 
might  beat  their  breasts  as  they  beheld  his  unutter- 
able anguish,  and  not  be  his  disciples  indeed.  They 
alone  were  his  followers  in  the  sense  which  He 
intended,  who  shared  his  spirit  ;  who  were  them- 
selves conformed  to  his  image.  In  this  sense  the 
great  Apostle  used  the  phrase  when,  counting  all 
else  but  loss  that  he  might  know  Christ,  and  the 
power  of  his  resurrection,  and  the  fellowship  of  his 
sufferings,  he  adds,  "  Not  as  though  I  had  already 
attained,  either  were  already  perfect,  but  I  follozv 
after,  if  that  I  may  apprehend  that  for  which  also  I 
am  apprehended  of  Christ  Jesus." 

When,  then,  we  speak  of  Christ  as  our  perfect 
pattern  and  example,  let  it  never  be  forgotten  that 
He  is  all  this  not  in  the  sense  of  being  simply  set 
up  for  our  outzvard  imitation  ;  we  can  never,  in  that 
cold,  formal  way,  come  to  be  like  Christ.  His  living 
impress  must  be  stamped  upon  the  heart  ;  we  must 
be  like  Him  inwardly  before  we  can  truly  resemble 
Him  in  his  outward  life  ;  we  must  be  buried  with 
Him  in   the  spiritual  likeness  of   his  death  before 


3 14     CHRIST,   THE  WAY,   THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFE. 

we  can  rise  and  walk  with  Him  in  newness  of  life. 
Thus  we  see  how  the  distinct  truths  into  which  our 
text  unfolds  are  still  all  connected.  Is  Christ  the 
way  ?  So  is  He  just  as  much  the  truth  and  the  life 
Would  we  follow  Him  as  our  example  ?  We  cannot 
do  so  unless  in  our  hearts  we  believe  the  truth  He 
manifested  ;  unless  in  our  daily  experience  we  know 
the  power  of  the  life  He  lived.  He  is  our  ideal  pat- 
tern ;  the  mark  of  the  prize  of  our  high  calling  is 
to  be  like  Him  ;  our  lives  can  have  no  higher  aim  ; 
but  we  can  be  conformed  to  his  outward  example 
only  as  we  are  transformed  into  his  inner  and  spir- 
itual image. 

They  show  you  in  the  "  quaint  old  town  of  toil 
and  traffic  "  forever  associated  with  the  genius  of 
Albrecht  Durer,  "  Nuremberg  the  ancient,"  a  series 
of  stone  pillars,  extending  from  the  city  gate  to  the 
old  cemetery  of  St.  John,  where  the  ashes  of  the 
great  artist  rest.  Where  the  line  of  pillars  ends 
stand  three  crosses,  on  which  are  carved  the  figures 
of  Christ  and  of  his  companions  in  the  last  agony. 
The  distance  from  the  gate  to  the  crosses  exactly 
measures  the  distance  which,  according  to  tradition, 
the  Redeemer  trod  on  the  weary  journey  when  He 
sank  beneath  his  load,  —  the  stone  pillars  marking 
its  successive  stages.  The  whole  was  the  work  of  a 
pious  pilgrim,  who  made  more  than  one  journey  to 
the  Holy  Land  to  insure  the  exactness  of  the  meas- 
urements. He  did  it  that  he  and  his  fellow-towns- 
men, treading  that  dolorous  way,  might  know  the 
fellowship  of  the  Saviour's  sufferings.  He  knew  no 
deeper  meaning  of  conformity  to  Christ  than  by  such 
outward  and  literal  imitation. 

Now,   may  we    not    commit    as    fatal   a    mistake 


CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE  LIFE.    315 

when  we  suffer  ourselves  to  regard  Christ  as  merely 
an  example ;  when  we  suppose  for  a  moment  that 
by  any  outward  imitation,  however  painfully  exact, 
we  can  come  to  be  truly  like  Him  ;  when  we  view 
Him  as  set  in  the  ever-receding  frame-work  of  a 
past  age,  like  an  antique  marble,  with  no  inner  and 
vital  relation  between  Him  and  us  ;  when,  in  short, 
we  take  Him  as  our  Way,  forgetting  that  He  is  not 
less  our  Truth  and  Life,  and  that  no  experience  of 
Him  can  be  complete  into  which  all  these  do  not  en- 
ter ?  Christ  is,  indeed,  our  perfect  pattern  ;  but  oh, 
the  disastrous  mistake  of  accepting  Him  as  simply 
that  !  How  little  does  that  soul  taste  the  secret 
springs  of  life  that  knows  no  nearer  access  than  this 
to  the  Son  of  Man  !  Outwardly  correct,  it  may  be 
zealously  devoted  to  good  deeds,  but  at  best  a  cold 
and  distant  walk  ;  keeping  the  commandments  ;  pene- 
trated, perhaps,  with  awful  sense  of  the  sanctity  of 
the  divine  law  ;  but  knowing  nothing  of  that  close 
and  tender  and  joyous  fellowship  when  the  whole 
law  is  fulfilled  in  love  ! 

II.  Christ  is  the  Truth :  and  He  is  this,  not  in 
the  limited  and  partial  meaning  simply  that  He 
spoke  the  truth.  To  give  this  interpretation  to  his 
sayings  would  abolish  the  essential  difference  be- 
tween Him  and  human  teachers.  We  miss  the  force 
of  his  declaration  if  we  stop  with  this.  He  calls 
himself  the  Truth  in  that  ampler  sense  in  which 
the  evangelist  describes  Him,  in  this  same  gospel, 
as  the  "  only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace 
and  truth."  He  was  the  manifested  truth,  the  rev- 
elation in  human  life  of  the  innermost  and  eternal 
reality  of  being.  He  set  forth  that  central  truth, 
of  which  all  other  truths  are  only  parts  and  frag- 
ments. 


3 16     CHRIST,   THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE  LIFE. 

In  the  manifestation  of  truth  there  are  various  de- 
grees and  stages.  The  sides  and  angles  of  a  crys- 
tal are  the  manifestation  of  one  kind  of  truth.  The 
well-ordered  movements  of  sun  and  stars  are  the 
manifestation  of  another.  "The  heavens  declare 
the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his 
handiwork."  But  the  manifestation  of  truth,  of  char- 
acter, and  of  life  is  more  excellent  than  these.  They 
all  shall  perish,  but  this  remains.  This  expresses 
what  no  material  form  can  represent ;  this  is  a  par- 
taking of  the  divine  nature.  In  this  vital  sense  did 
Christ  call  himself  the  Truth.  From  the  beginning 
of  time  had  truth  been  embodied  in  material  forms, 
and  so  far  as  it  was  possible  had  the  invisible  things 
of  God  been  shadowed  forth  in  the  creation  of  the 
world.  "  O  Lord,  how  manifold  are  thy  works  !  In 
wisdom  hast  Thou  made  them  all,"  was  the  anthem 
that  nature  had  ceaselessly  repeated  since  the  morn- 
ing stars  began  the  strain.  More  impressively  had 
it  been  illustrated  in  the  course  of  eternal  Provi- 
dence, so  that,  beholding  the  unmistakable  dealings 
of  the  Almighty,  men  had  been  moved  to  cry  out 
that  "righteousness  and  judgment  were  the  habita- 
tion of  his  throne ;  "  and  still  more  distinctly  had 
it  been  expressed  in  the  symbolic  language  of  the 
temple  service,  and  in  the  express  teaching  of 
prophets  and  holy  men  ;  but  these  all  had  been  only 
the  preparatory  stages  for  that  full  and  perfect  reve- 
lation, when  the  law  that  was  given  by  Moses  faded 
before  the  grace  and  truth  that  came  by  Jesus 
Christ.  "  God,"  says  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews, 
"who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake 
in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath 
in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son,  the 


CHRIST,   THE  WAY,   THE   TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     317 

brightness  of  his  glory,  and  the  express  image  of  his 
person." 

Christ,  then,  was  the  living  Truth.  Let  us  keep 
earnestly  in  mind  that  this  was  what  was  distinctive 
in  Him.  In  this  his  supreme  excellence  consisted. 
Not  a  mere  teacher,  though  He  spake  as  never  man 
spake,  and  men,  when  they  heard  Him,  wondered  at 
the  gracious  words  that  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth. 
Back  of  his  words  lay  something  unuttered  and  un- 
utterable :  the  beauty  of  a  sinless  character  ;  the 
grace  of  a  life  that  was  one  with  the  Father ;  the 
enticing  power  of  a  love  whose  height  and  depth 
were  measureless.  Christ  was  the  living  Truth  ; 
how  vain,  then,  the  attempt  by  any  logical  dissec- 
tion of  his  teachings  to  fathom  his  uncreated  being! 
How  far  short  fall  all  definitions  of  theology,  all 
verbal  niceties  of  creeds,  of  setting  forth  his  tran- 
scendent fullness !  How  powerless  is  any  mere  effort 
of  the  intellect  to  grasp  Him  !  How  pitiable  is  their 
mistake  who  dream  that  they  know  Christ,  because 
they  have  reasoned  themselves  into  any  amount  of 
traditional  archaism,  or  have  suffered  themselves  to 
be  seduced  into  any  amount  of  fanciful  speculation 
respecting  his  mysterious  nature  ! 

That  is  a  most  pathetic  passage  in  which  a  great 
writer  of  the  last  generation  likens  a  kindred  spirit 
to  "  a  solitary  thinker,  who  in  the  morning  of  his  day 
found  some  ancient  riddle  hewn  upon  an  eternal 
rock.  He  believes  in  this  riddle,  but  he  strives  in 
vain  to  guess  it.  He  carries  it  about  with  him 
the  whole  day,  allures  weighty  sentiments  from  it, 
spreads  it  out  into  doctrines  and  images  which  de- 
light the  hearer,  and  inspire  him  with  nobler  wishes 
and  hopes.     But  the  interpretation  fails  ;  and  in  the 


318     CHRIST,  THE  WAY,   THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFE. 

evening  he  lays  him  down,  with  the  hope  that  some 
divine  dream  or  the  next  awakening  will  pronounce 
the  word  of  his  intense  desire." 

Of  the  experience  of  how  many  souls  is  this  a 
picture,  —  of  souls  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  truth, 
inflamed  with  high  ideals,  but  who  search  for  the 
abstract  instead  of  following  the  living  Truth  ;  who 
vainly  fancy  that  they  can  apprehend  the  Son  of 
Man  without  coming  into  a  personal  fellowship  with 
Him,  that  they  can  know  his  doctrine  before  they 
have  been  ready  to  do  his  will !  Alas,  they  cannot 
reverse  the  divine  method.  They  can  never  com- 
prehend the  deep  sense  in  which  He  calls  himself 
the  Truth,  till  in  their  lives  they  have  found  Him 
to  be  the  Way.  There  can  be  no  genuine  belief  in 
Christ  which  does  not  spring  from  this  vital,  experi- 
mental acquaintance  with  Him. 

I  would  not  seem  to  undervalue  some  of  the  con- 
tributions that  have  recently  been  made  to  our  re- 
ligious literature.  They  furnish  eloquent  and  varied 
delineations  of  the  character  of  Jesus ;  they  call  to 
mind  aspects  of  his  work  too  much  forgotten  or  over- 
looked ;  they  illustrate  the  yearning  that  men  feel  to 
solve  the  mystery  hid  from  ages  and  generations  ; 
they  show  that  the  old  question  is  ever  fresh  and  new 
—  "  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  "  But  after  all  their 
chief  value  consists  in  the  conviction  they  arouse 
of  their  own  inadequacy  ;  in  turning  the  inquiring 
spirit  from  their  own  eloquent  discussions  to  the 
simple  picture  of  the  gospels  ;  in  stirring  within 
the  soul  such  utter  sense  of  the  wearisomeness  and 
emptiness  of  human  speculation  as  shall  cause  it  to 
thirst  for  the  springs  of  living  water.  To  such  as 
these  does  Christ  become  the  Truth  ;  and  as  evi- 


CHRIST,   THE  WAY,   THE   TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     319 

dence  of  such  vital  apprehension,  better  than  whole 
chapters  of  fascinating  portraiture,  better  than  whole 
volumes  of  learned  disquisition,  is  the  tender,  yearn- 
ing trust  that  sings, 

"Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly." 

III.  Christ  is  the  Life ;  and  thus  is  his  work  in  us 
completed.  He  is  the  Example  to  be  followed,  He 
is  the  Truth  to  be  believed ;  but,  more  than  all  this, 
He  is  the  Life  to  be  lived.  As  we  cannot  heartily 
surrender  ourselves  to  the  contagion  of  his  example 
without  being  irresistibly  persuaded  of  the  truth  He 
manifested,  so  we  cannot  truly  believe  in  Him  with- 
out experiencing  the  mysterious  consciousness  that 
it  is  no  longer  we  that  live,  but  Christ  that  liveth 
in  us.  The  process  is  organic  and  indissoluble. 
Sooner  shall  seed-time  and  harvest  fail.  There  is  a 
kind  of  climax  here  ;  for  this  doctrine  of  the  mani- 
fested life  flowing  from  the  vine  through  all  its 
branches,  fusing  together  all  generations  of  believ- 
ing souls  in  the  unity  of  one  common  spiritual  na- 
ture, is  the  core  of  Christianity,  —  its  central,  and  at 
the  same  time  most  transcendent,  truth.  In  noth- 
ing does  the  Son  of  Man  mark  so  much  his  distinc- 
tion from  all  other  men  and  his  eminence  over  them 
as  when  He  says,  "  For  as  the  Father  has  life  in 
himself,  so  hath  He  given  to  the  Son  to  have  life 
in  himself." 

The  mystery  of  life  !  Everywhere  we  study  it.  In 
its  lowest  and  most  imperfect  forms,  how  it  eludes 
our  scrutiny  !  Physiologists  are  forced  to  the  ad- 
mission that  it  lies  back  of  organization  ;  that  it 
fashions  organization  and  builds  it  up.  In  the  help- 
less globules  of  jelly  that  float  in  our  summer  seas, 


320     CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE  LIFE. 

that  the  child  catches  in  his  hand,  lies  imprisoned  a 
mysterious  life  that  works  itself  out  in  delicate  sea- 
shells,  whose  lines  of  grace  and  tints  of  beauty  no 
art  of  man  can  rival.     What  is  that  power  of  life  ? 

The  inner  life  has  its  centre  of  action,  its  organic 
law.  It  is  built  up,  a  house  not  made  with  hands, 
by  the  subtle  operation  of  spiritual  forces.  It  must 
conform  throughout  its  fitly  framed  construction  to 
a  divine  scheme.  A  vital  force  lies  back  of  all 
growth  of  human  character,  as  it  lies  back  of  all 
growth  of  the  external  world.  And  as  the  countless 
lilies  of  the  field  confess  one  common  pervading 
vital  force,  so  the  leaves  of  the  tree  of  life,  the 
branches  of  the  true  vine,  are  the  organic  outgrowth 
of  one  common  spiritual  principle. 

And  this  common  pervading  life  is  Christ.  It 
was  in  Him  in  its  fullness  ;  it  must  be  in  us  if  we 
would  be  like  Him.  "  In  Him  was  life,  and  the  life 
was  the  light  of  men."  To  no  part  of  his  teaching 
did  the  Saviour  recur  with  such  emphasis  as  to  this 
central  characteristic  truth.  On  nothing  did  He 
lay  such  weight  as  on  the  principle,  repeated  in  so 
many  forms  of  statement,  and  enforced  with  such 
variety  of  illustration,  that  identity  of  spiritual  life 
was  the  distinctive  feature  of  his  kingdom.  "  I," 
said  He,  "  am  the  bread  of  life  ;  "  "I  am  the  living 
bread  that  came  down  from  heaven  ;"  and  the  affect- 
ing sacrament  of  his  body  and  blood,  which  He 
commanded  his  followers  to  observe  until  his  sec- 
ond appearing,  was  designed  not,  according  to  the 
cold  and  artificial  view  of  some,  as  a  mere  memorial 
of  his  death,  but  far  more  as  a  perpetual  and  speak- 
ing witness  of  the  great  truth  that  He  ever  liveth, 
and  that  all  his  true  disciples  live  in  Him  ;  eating 


CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE  LIFE.     32 1 

his  flesh  and  drinking  his  blood  in  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  that  inner  indissoluble  union,  whereby 
they  evermore  dwell  in  Him  and  He  in  them  ! 

Christ  is  our  Life ;  we  confess  no  doctrine  more 
comprehensive  than  this.  The  power  of  apostolic 
faith  acknowledged  no  more  satisfying  mystery. 
Recognizing  this  pervading  oneness  of  spiritual 
being,  St.  Paul  declared,  "  The  law  of  the  spirit  of 
life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  made  me  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  death."  It  is  in  his  view  the  character- 
istic mark  of  our  perplexed  and  changeful  Christian 
course,  with  its  doubts  and  fears  and  struggles,  that 
thus  we  ourselves,  always  bearing  about  in  the  body 
the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  make  manifest  the 
life  also  of  Jesus  in  our  mortal  flesh.  His  epis- 
tles are  indeed  a  kind  of  running  commentary  on 
this  portion  of  our  text.  Without  the  words  of 
Christ  the  rapt  language  of  the  Apostle  might  ap- 
pear a  mystic  dream  ;  without  the  comment  of  the 
Apostle  the  language  of  our  Lord  might  perplex  with 
seeming  impossibility  ;  but  when  a  man,  sinful  and 
tempted  like  ourselves,  affirms,  "  I  am  crucified  with 
Christ,  nevertheless  I  live  ;  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me  ;  and  the  life  which  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who 
loved  me  and  gave  himself  for  me,"  we  feel  con- 
vinced that  this  far-off  ideal  is  not  outside  the  range 
of  our  experience. 

The  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life ;  Christian  ex- 
perience is  completed  here.  The  soul  of  man  in  its 
endless  growth  can  have  nothing  that  is  not  con- 
tained in  this.  To  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  to  have  our  life  hid  with  Christ  in  God,  to  share 
the  eternal  life  in  which  mortality  at  last  shall  be 


21 


322     CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFt. 

swallowed  up,  —  this  is  the  goal  of  all  effort  and  of 
all  aspiration.  Of  this  life  all  other  life  is  but  the 
evanescent  type  ;  for  it  all  human  experience  and 
discipline  are  designed  but  as  the  portal  and  prepara- 
tion. Can  we  count  it  strange  that  the  faintest  hint 
of  this  great  possibility,  the  far-off  promise  of  this 
luminous  reality,  should  have  led  men  literally  at 
times  to  give  up  father  and  mother,  and  houses  and 
lands,  yea,  all  that  they  had,  that  they  might  attain 
this  blissful  state  ;  that,  fleeing  the  temptations  and 
follies  of  the  world,  in  mountain  solitudes  and  in 
monastic  cells,  they  should  have  sought  by  prayer, 
by  fasting,  by  tears  and  stripes,  by  the  ecstasies  of 
mystical  devotion,  to  soar  to  the  serener  height  of 
the  new  and  living  way  which  Christ  hath  opened  ? 
A  modern  poet,  catching  the  purest  strain  of  me- 
diaeval piety,  has  not  inadequately  embodied  in  his 
verse  such  mystic  breathings  :  — 

"  Deep  on  the  convent  roof  the  snows 
Are  sparkling  to  the  moon  ; 
My  heart  to  heaven  like  vapor  goes, 
May  my  soul  follow  soon  ! 
The  shadows  of  the  convent  towers 
Slant  down  the  snowy  sward, 
Still  creeping  with  the  creeping  hours 
That  lead  me  to  my  Lord. 
Make  Thou  my  spirit  pure  and  clean, 
As  are  the  frosty  skies, 
Or  this  first  snow-drop  of  the  year 
That  in  my  bosom  lies." 

Yet  such  yearning  of  passionate  affection  that  em- 
braces Christ  with  almost  the  warmth  of  a  natural 
love  is  not,  after  all,  the  truest  experience  of  Him 
He  is,  indeed,  the  Life ;  unless  we  ourselves  know 
Him  as  such  we  can  never  know  Him  aright  ;  but 
He  is  also  the  Way  and  the  Truth.     We  rend  at  our 


CHRIST,  THE  WAY,   THE  TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     323 

peril  the  seamless  robe.  Except  we  walk  in  the 
straight  and  narrow  way  which  He  has  trod,  except 
the  truth  that  came  by  Him  guides  and  illumines 
and  enlarges  us,  our  rapt  forms  of  devotion  are  only 
an  idle  dream. 

Who  are  they  that  have  learned  to  eat  the  living 
bread  ?  Not  those  who  have  stood  gazing  up  idly 
into  heaven  ;  not  those  who  have  forgotten  this  life 
in  selfish  aspirations  for  another.  There  is  in  the 
Christian  life  the  element  of  mystical  fervor,  the 
seasons  of  sweet  communion,  the  longing  of  the  soul 
to  flee  away  ;  no  deep  and  pure  and  ardent  piety  can 
ever  wholly  lack  it ;  yet  is  it  always  the  outgrowth  of 
some  practical  obedience.  The  winds  of  heaven  may 
blow  among  the  branches,  but  the  roots  of  the  tree 
are  set  in  the  solid  earth.  Never  can  we  be  sure, 
then,  that  Christ  is  our  Life,  unless  we  follow  Him 
as  the  Way,  unless  we  accept  Him  as  the  Truth. 
The  Christian  life  in  its  nature  is  an  inner  life,  but 
not  a  life  without  outward  tests  and  conditions.  It 
is  a  spiritual  life,  yet  the  office  of  the  Spirit  is  to 
take  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  show  them  unto 
us.  A  humble,  patient,  faithful  following  of  Christ, 
a  daily  crucifixion  for  his  sake,  a  bearing  of  Him 
about  in  all  the  common  walks  of  life,  an  earnest 
study  and  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  truth 
that  came  by  Him,  can  alone  assure  us  that  this  life 
we  now  live  in  the  flesh  we  live  by  the  faith  of  the 
Son  of  God. 

It  may  be  that  in  the  unobtrusive  performance  of 
daily  duty  many  humble  souls  live  truly  by  this  faith 
who,  measured  by  human  standards,  have  very  im- 
perfectly complied  with  these  conditions  of  our  text. 
It  may  be,  even,  that  some  truly  follow  Christ's  ex- 


324     CHRIST,   THE   WAY,   THE   TRUTH,   THE  LIFE. 

ample  who  do  not  call  upon  his  name.  The  church 
has  ever  cherished  a  touching  legend  of  one  who 
carried  the  Saviour  across  a  stream,  not  knowing 
that  it  was  He.  And  may  not  this  legend  have 
been  verified  in  the  story  of  the  shipwrecked  sailor, 
cast,  years  ago,  upon  a  desert  coast,  who,  finding 
among  his  surviving  comrades  a  fair-haired  child, 
whose  parents  had  perished  in  the  wreck,  led  it  by 
the  hand,  and,  when  the  little  feet  were  sore  with  long 
wading  through  the  burning  sand,  bore  it  in  his  bo- 
som, and,  though  his  own  failing  strength  was  over- 
taxed, refused  to  leave  it  alone,  and  at  last,  when 
both  were  wasted  with  burning  fever,  laid  down  to 
die  beside  it  ?  Perhaps,  though  he  knew  it  not,  that 
starving  sailor  had  been  eating  the  bread  of  life  ;  it 
may  be,  though  no  human  voice  consoled  him,  that 
the  Lord,  whom  he  had  never  known  in  the  flesh, 
was  saying  unto  him,  "  Inasmuch  as  thou  hast  done 
it  unto  this  little  child,  thou  hast  done  it  unto  me." 
The  Good  Shepherd  knoweth  his  sheep,  and  though 
we  hear  it  not  He  calleth  them  by  name. 

It  has  been  the  case  in  all  ages  that  some  have 
known  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  whose  conceptions 
of  his  character  and  offices  were  meagre  and  indis- 
tinct. Such  is  the  unmistakable  testimony  of  Scrip- 
ture itself.  For  all  the  fathers,  says  the  Apostle, 
drank  of  the  same  spiritual  rock  of  which  we  drink. 
This  faith  supplies  the  inner  unity  to  all  Hebrew 
history.  This  ever-increasing,  ever-deepening  ex- 
perience of  the  one  spiritual  life,  that  is  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,  was  the  bond  that 
held  ancient  society  together.  In  the  accents  of  the 
dying  Jacob,  of  the  cast-down  but  not  despairing 
Job,  in  the  raptures  of  Isaiah,  in  the  vision  of  the 


CHRIST,   THE   WAY,   THE   TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     325 

Son  of  Man  that  Daniel  saw,  have  we  the  abun- 
dant and  convincing  evidence  that  many  had  been 
lighted  by  the  rays  of  true  light  to  whom  was  never 
granted  any  open  vision  of  the  Son  of  Righteous- 
ness ! 

But,  with  this  clearly  recognized,  that  the  modes 
and  degrees  in  which  Christ  may  become  the  Way, 
the  Truth,  and  the  Life  do  not  admit  of  any  human 
measurement,  there  still  remains  the  condition  with 
which  our  text  concludes  :  "  No  man  cometh  unto 
the  Father  but  by  me."  There  is  no  qualification, 
there  is  no  limitation.  In  no  other  way,  does  the 
Son  of  Man  assert,  than  by  such  practical  experience 
of  the  truth  manifested  in  my  life,  can  any  human 
soul  find  access  to  the  Father  of  spirits.  So  has  it 
always  been,  so  shall  it  always  be.  Of  the  spiritual 
Rock  the  fathers  drank  ;  of  it  shall  children  and  chil- 
dren's children  drink  through  all  generations.  The 
changeless,  eternal  outlines  of  experience  which  the 
text  presents  are  the  conditions  of  all  true  living 
unto  God.  The  Son  of  Man  asserts  for  himself  in 
this  respect  an  exclusive  eminence.  He  is  not 
one  among  many,  but  one  alone  ;  He  illustrates 
the  unalterable  law  of  the  spirit  of  life.  In  Him 
is  the  essence  of  whatever  good  has  ever  been  in 
human  nature,  and  of  whatever  good  there  shall 
ever  be. 

In  this  sense  Christ  has  been  aptly  termed  the 
"  contemporary  of  all  ages."  A  shallow  and  flip- 
pant unbelief  has  dared  in  our  day  to  speak  of  Christ 
as  though  He  were  obsolete.  "  Show  us  the  Father, 
and  it  sufficeth  us,"  is  its  ignorant  rejoinder  to  his 
claims.  Alas,  has  He  indeed  been  so  long  with  us, 
and  have  we  not  known  Him  ?     Have  we  so  failed 


326     CHRIST,  THE  WAY,  THE  TRUTH,  THE  LIFE. 

to  comprehend  his  fullness  as  not  to  have  learned 
that  he  that  hath  seen  Him  hath  seen  the  Father, 
and  that  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by 
Him  ?  Have  we  understood  so  little  of  our  own 
nature  and  our  own  wants  as  to  deem  that  mere 
intellectual  progress  or  scientific  culture  can  ever 
satisfy  us  ?  Have  we  felt  no  pain  and  weariness  in 
our  pilgrimage  of  life  that  have  made  us  yearn  for 
the  shadow  of  the  Rock  of  Ages  ? 

I  speak  not  now  of  the  Christ  of  theology,  the 
Christ  of  controversy ;  in  some  such  sense  Christ 
may  be  obsolete,  for  our  little  systems  have  their  day. 
I  speak  of  the  living  Christ,  — the  Christ  who  sat  by 
the  well  of  Jacob,  who  wept  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus, 
who  suffered  the  sinful  woman  to  bathe  his  feet, 
who  whispered  words  of  comfort  to  the  dying  thief. 
I  speak  of  the  Christ  who  ever  liveth,  the  unseen 
Saviour  who  is  ever  coming  to  his  own ;  whose  pres- 
ence makes  the  "  path  of  life  we  tread  to-day  as 
strange  as  that  the  Hebrews  trod  ; "  who  is  ever  near 
to  strengthen  and  comfort ;  whom  we  bear  about  with 
us ;  whom  we  know  in  the  fellowship  of  our  earthly 
suffering;  who  holds  us  safe  when  we  sink  in  deep 
waters  ;  who  in  the  final  hour,  when  flesh  and  heart 
fail,  is  our  rod  and  our  staff  through  the  dark  valley. 
Tell  me,  has  the  world  outgrown  its  need  of  a  Christ 
like  this  ? 

Are  men  weary  of  the  story  of  the  cross  ?  Are 
they  weary  of  sunrise  and  of  spring  ?  It  is  ever  old, 
yet  ever  new.  Only  a  pitiful  failure  to  comprehend 
these  various  and  profound  aspects  in  which  the 
Son  of  Man  stands  related  to  the  spiritual  constitu- 
tion of  the  race,  these  aspects  which  himself  inti 
mated  when  He  declared,  "  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth 


CHRIST,   THE  WAY,  THE   TRUTH,   THE  LIFE.     327 

and  the  Life  ;  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but 
by  me," — only  a  pitiful  failure  to  comprehend  these 
could  have  betrayed  any  into  the  terrible  delusion 
of  thinking  that  they  could  climb  up  some  other 
way. 


CHRIST,   THE   BREAD    OF    LIFE. 


Then  said  they  unto  Him,   Lord,  evermore  give   us  this  bread. 
—  John  vi.  34. 

The  Scriptures  emphasize  the  close  analogy  be- 
tween the  natural  and  the  spiritual  world.  The 
woman  of  Samaria  coming  to  draw  water  at  Jacob's 
well  was  told  of  the  living  water,  of  which  whoso- 
ever should  drink  would  never  thirst  ;  this  great 
multitude  seeking  Jesus,  not  because  they  saw  the 
miracles,  but  because  they  did  eat  of  the  loaves  and 
were  filled,  were  bidden  to  labor  not  for  the  meat 
which  perisheth,  but  for  that  meat  which  endureth 
unto  everlasting  life. 

There  is  something  impressive  in  the  very  home- 
liness of  these  analogies.  Qur  Lord  selects,  as  most 
striking  types  of  spiritual  things,  the  commonest 
necessities  of  our  daily  life.  He  holds  out  divine 
truth  not  as  a  rare  luxury,  to  be  enjoyed  on  great 
occasions,  but  as  the  water  and  the  bread  that  we 
need  for  every-day  support.  As  these  are  the  in- 
dispensable conditions  of  our  physical  being,  so  is 
the  divine  nourishment  which  comes  through  Him, 
in  the  same  manner  the  indispensable  support  of 
our  spiritual  being.  He  is  the  living  Bread  which 
came  down  from  heaven ;  if  any  man  eat  of  this 
Bread  he  shall  live  forever.     The  miraculous  food 

1  Written  1863. 


CHRIST,   THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE.  329 

which  was  daily  dropped  on  the  weary  path  trodden 
by  the  chosen  people  for  forty  years,  was  only  a  far- 
off  anticipation  of  this  living  Bread  supplied  to  the 
true  Israel  of  God.  The  rock  smitten  by  Moses 
was  promise  of  a  Rock  whereof  all  may  drink.  And 
the  twelve  tribes  v/ere  not  more  dependent  on  those 
daily  mercies  of  their  unseen  deliverer  than  are  we 
all  on  daily  supplies  of  this  true  and  living  food. 
In  the  strict  and  real  sense  we  live  thereby.  Our 
natural  life  is  but  the  shadow,  and  not  the  substance, 
of  that  inner  and  imperishable  life  that  we  live  by 
eating  this  bread  and  by  drinking  this  water  that 
Christ  supplies.  Well  may  we  cry,  then,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  our  text,  Lord,  evermore  give  us  this 
bread  ! 

With  how  much  of  divine  recognition  of  the  truth 
and  new-born  yearning  for  it  the  multitude  uttered 
these  words,  we  cannot  say.  Whether,  as  some  sup- 
pose, they  were  here  awakened  to  a  recognition  of 
spiritual  things,  or  whether  they  were  dazzled  still 
by  visions  of  some  outward  glory,  in  which  they 
would  fain  be  partakers,  the  context  leaves  unex- 
plained. It  would  seem,  however,  that  so  full  an  ex- 
hibition on  the  part  of  our  Lord  of  the  mystery  of 
his  spiritual  kingdom  would  scarcely  have  been 
vouchsafed  to  such  as  felt  no  real  longing  for  spirit- 
ual light.  But  with  how  much  or  how  little  of  mean- 
ing the  words  were  uttered  by  the  multitude,  we 
may  adopt  them  as  expressing  a  legitimate  demand 
of  the  soul.  "  Lord,  evermore  give  us  this  bread." 
Before  we  ask  even  for  our  daily  bread  this  petition 
should  be  offered.  Better,  if  need  be,  go  wholly 
without  our  daily  bread,  better  let  the  body  famish, 
than  suffer  the  soul  to  lack  its  nourishment.   "  There- 


330  CHRIST,    THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE. 

fore,  take  no  thought,  saying  what  shall  we  eat  or 
what  shall  we  drink,  or  wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed,  but  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness,"  —  this  is  the  monition  of  the 
Great  Teacher. 

As  Christ  was  the  Bread  of  Life,  so  are  his  apos- 
tles and  ministers  the  breakers  and  dispensers  of 
that  Bread.  They  can  give  no  such  proof  that  they 
wield  an  apostolic  ministry  as  when  they  feed  men's 
souls.  If  they  are  true  apostles,  not  by  man  but 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  if  they  have  the  divine  commis- 
sion that  cometh  from  above,  if  through  them  as 
chosen  instruments  the  Divine  Spirit  exercises  its 
dominion  of  the  souls  of  men,  they  will  see  repeated 
around  them  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  great  mul- 
titude. Their  words  may  be,  indeed,  no  more  than 
five  bailey  loaves  and  two  small  fishes,  yet  if  vivified 
and  distributed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  they  will  suffice 
often  to  feed  five  thousand,  and  still  send  none  empty 
away.  To  feed  and  nourish  the  spiritual  life  is,  then, 
the  great  end  for  which  the  ministry  is  instituted ; 
and  a  ministry  which  does  not  fulfill  this  end,  no 
matter  whatever  else  may  be  said  about  it,  must  be 
regarded  as  a  failure.  No  matter  how  eloquent,  no 
matter  how  richly  furnished  forth  with  taste  and 
learning,  if  it  does  not  achieve  the  supreme  end  of 
nourishing  the  inner  man,  and  bringing  the  soul  to 
the  completeness  of  its  full  and  perfect  growth,  it 
does  not  accomplish  the  chief  end  for  which  it  was 
ordained.  Better  the  rudest,  most  unlettered  min- 
istry, where  only  the  heart  is  reached,  and  where  the 
hearers  are  made  to  grow  in  grace  and  in  the  knowl- 
edge and  experience  of  Christ.  "  Evermore  give 
us  this  Bread,"  is  the  cry  sounding  in  the  ears  of 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE.  33  I 

every  preacher  of  the  gospel  from  the  lips  of  hun- 
gry and  perishing  men.  "  Evermore  give  us  "  not 
poor  words  of  human  wisdom,  but  the  living  word 
of  God,  whereby  we  too  may  live. 

The  food  of  the  soul,  the  living  water,  the  bread 
of  God  that  cometh  down  from  heaven,  — what  is  the 
meaning  of  these  phrases  ?  What  is  that  true  bread, 
which  not  Moses,  but  only  our  Heavenly  Father,  giv- 
eth  us  ?  How  are  we  led  to  crave  this  heavenly 
manna  ?  How  shall  we  learn  to  live  like  our  sorely 
tempted  Master,  not  by  earthly  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God  ?  Let  these  questions,  in  which  lie  hid  the 
great  issues  of  life  eternal,  claim  for  the  passing 
hour  our  earnest  thought. 

1.  What  is  the  true  and  living  Bread  that  cometh 
down  from  heaven  ?  The  question  is  answered  in 
the  verse  following  our  text  :  "  And  Jesus  said  unto 
them,  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life;  he  that  cometh  to 
me  shall  never  hunger ;  he  that  believeth  in  me 
shall  never  thirst."  And  when  the  Jews  murmured 
at  this  saying,  our  Lord  repeated  it  in  still  more 
emphatic  language  :  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink 
his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you."  Christ,  then,  is 
the  Bread  of  Life.  It  is  in  the  knowledge  of  Him, 
in  whom  dwelt  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bod- 
ily, that  true  life  consists.  "  This  is  life  eternal,  that 
they  might  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent."  We  can  know  the 
Father  only  as  we  know  the  Son,  and  he  that  hath 
the  Son  hath  the  Father  also.  The  Bread  from 
heaven  which  the  Father  gives  is  therefore  his  own 
eternal  life  imparted  to  us  and  implanted  in  us 
through  his  Son  Jesus  Christ. 


332  CHRIST,    THE   BREAD   OF  LIFE. 

When  our  Lord  calls  himself  the  Bread  of  Life 
He  uses  figurative  language.  But  every  figure  sets 
forth  some  substantial  truth.  We  are  not,  then,  deal- 
ing here  with  mere  metaphors,  but  with  the  very 
realities  of  the  spiritual  world.  What  our  Saviour 
means  is  that  He  is  to  us  a  principle  of  spiritual 
nourishment,  in  just  as  strict  and  true  a  sense  as 
that  the  bread  we  eat  is  to  us  a  principle  of  bodily 
nourishment.  That  bread  is  in  fact  but  the  shadow 
of  the  true  bread  which  He  supplies.  Our  bodies 
are  supported  by  the  food  we  take.  Without  this 
constant  supply  they  would  inevitably  perish.  They 
have  in  them  no  capacity  of  self-existence.  Our 
spiritual  natures  need  in  the  same  way  to  be  sup- 
plied with  nutriment.  Without  it  they  too  will 
perish.  They  cannot  exist  in  healthy  action,  and 
grow  day  by  day  to  a  fuller  stature,  if  shut  up  to 
their  own  interior  resources.  They  must  be  fed 
with  living  bread,  and  this  living  bread  is  He  that 
came  down  from  heaven  and  gave  his  life  for  the 
world. 

Observe  that  our  Lord  does  not  say,  "  I  bring  you 
the  bread  of  life,"  but  "  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life." 
"  Except  ye  eat  my  flesh  and  drink  my  blood,  ye  have 
no  life  in  you."  The  meaning  of  this  evidently  is 
that  the  divine  nutriment  which  Christ  furnishes 
consists  not  so  much  in  his  formal  teaching  as  in 
his  person,  in  the  whole  mysterious  and  life-giving 
efficacy  that  flowed  out  from  him  as  Lord  of  life 
and  Head  of  the  new  creation.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  mere  instruction  is  sometimes  called  food. 
Books  are  the  food  of  the  mind.  The  intellectual 
nature  is  nourished  and  stimulated  by  them.  We 
digest  the  wise  sayings  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare 


CHRTST,    THE   BREAD   OF  LIFE.  333 

and  Burke,  and  make  them  a  part  of  our  own  men- 
tal being.  But  it  would  be  a  strained  and  unmean- 
ing phrase  to  say  that  we  eat  the  flesh  and  drink 
the  blood  of  Bacon,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Burke.  It 
must  be,  then,  in  some  deeper  sense  than  that  He 
outwardly  instructs  us  that  our  Lord  calls  himself 
the  Bread  of  Life.  He  touches  our  springs  of  being 
by  some  more  vital  contact. 

In  Him,  we  are  told,  was  life.  He  did  not  come 
simply  to  reveal  eternal  truth ;  He  was  the  truth,  — 
the  embodiment  in  human  nature  of  the  eternal 
verity  of  things  ;  and  the  fact  that  He  was  this  per- 
fect embodiment  of  truth  made  Him  the  full  and  su- 
preme revelation  of  it.  He  was  the  manifested  life 
of  God,  which  men  saw  with  their  eyes,  and  which 
they  looked  upon,  and  which  their  hands  handled. 
What  He  taught  was  but  incidental  to  what  He  was. 

In  using,  therefore,  the  peculiar  phrase,  "  I  am 
the  Bread  of  Life,"  our  Saviour  meant  to  assert  for 
himself  a  dignity  and  efficacy  far  beyond  those  of  a 
mere  teacher.  True,  he  taught  men  ;  and  never 
man  spake  as  He  spake.  But  his  oral  teaching  was 
designed  only  to  introduce  men  to  the  true  and  per- 
fect revelation.  This  was  indeed  eternal  life,  that 
they  might  know  Him  ;  but  they  could  never  know 
Him  in  the  fullness  of  his  saving  power  if  they 
never  received  Him  as  more  than  a  mere  teacher, 
though    sent  from  God. 

There  is  doubtless  a  deep  mystery  here.  But  we 
must  not  shrink  from  mystery  if  we  would  seek  out 
the  ways  of  God.  There  is  mystery,  which  the 
nicest  analysis  of  science  cannot  unfold,  in  the  way 
in  which  our  daily  bread  is  made  to  nourish  our 
natural   bodies.      How,  from    the   dead   matter  on 


334  CHRIST,   THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE. 

which  we  feed,  is  drawn  that  subtle  principle  of 
life  which  builds  up  our  goodly  frames  and  shoots 
through  our  delicate  nerves,  thinks  in  our  brains, 
and  loves  in  our  hearts,  and  speaks  in  our  voices, 
and  sparkles  in  our  eyes  ?  Do  we  ask  what  is  meant 
by  the  life-giving  efficacy  of  Christ's  person  ?  We 
have  the  human  hints  and  illustrations  of  it  in  eveiy 
life  of  love  and  goodness  and  truth.  The  love  of 
every  mother,  shining  like  daily  sunlight  on  her 
child  ;  quickening  its  young  life  as  the  sunlight 
quickens  the  perfume  and  beauty  of  the  rose  ;  nurs- 
ing it  with  constant  sacrifices  of  joy,  as  the  rose  is 
nursed  by  the  south  wind  and  the  dew  ;  drawing  out 
its  young  affections  ;  by  loving,  teaching  it  to  love, 
—  all  this  is  illustration  of  the  mighty  but  mysterious 
working  of  the  living  person.  And  from  this  which 
we  see  every  day,  what  shall  we  argue  as  to  the 
might  and  efficacy  of  that  person,  who  was  not  a 
poor,  weak,  frail,  sinful  being  like  ourselves,  but  the 
express  image  of  the  Infinite  Father ;  whose  love 
was  not  the  love  of  a  mere  human  friend,  but  had 
a  height  and  depth  and  length  and  breadth  that 
pass  all  knowledge  ?  If  the  young  child  is  so  mar- 
velously  nourished  by  the  springs  of  love  that  are 
opened  in  a  mother's  heart,  what  may  we  not  expect 
from  that  heart  which  compassed  all  human  wants, 
and  bore  the  burden  of  all  human  sorrows  ?  If  the 
sunshine  of  mere  human  goodness  can  warm  the 
soul,  and  drive  from  it  the  chill  vapors  of  selfish- 
ness and  hate  and  doubt,  what  shall  be  the  effect 
of  the  rising  on  it  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  of 
the  shining  into  it  of  infinite  eternal  love,  of  the 
abiding  there  of  heavenly  truth,  of  that  divine  power 
and  presence  which  were  brought  near  to  us  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE.  335 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  our  Lord,  in  this 
likening  of  himself  to  the  Bread  of  Life,  had  dis- 
tinct reference  to  the  sacrament  of  his  body  and 
blood,  which  He  afterwards  instituted  as  a  perpet- 
ual memorial.  But  the  reference  is  not  to  the  sac- 
rament ;  it  is  rather  to  the  great  truth  which  the  sac- 
rament visibly  sets  forth,  —  the  great  truth,  never 
to  be  forgotten  nor  lost  out  of  sight,  that  Christ  is 
made  available  to  us  not  by  any  outward  work,  but 
only  by  a  true  inward  participation  in  his  nature. 
"Abide  in  me,  and  I  in  you,"  is  his  own  monition 
to  his  disciples.  His  spiritual  nature  must  be  as- 
similated even  as  our  physical  frames  assimilate 
the  nutritious  principle  of  food,  till  by  degrees 
He  becomes  so  completely  inwrought  into  the  be- 
lieving soul  that  it  can  say,  "  It  is  no  longer  I  that 
live,  but  Christ  that  liveth  in  me."  It  is  in  this  deep 
inner  sense  that  Christ  becomes  the  Bread  of  Life. 
Thus  it  is  that  we  live  by  faith  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
and,  in  the  phrase  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  are  made 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature. 

Christ  is,  then,  the  Bread  of  Life,  not  in  the  sense 
that  He  conveys  to  us  instruction  in  divine  truth, 
but  in  that  through  Him  as  indwelling  fullness  of 
the  Godhead  was  imparted  to  human  nature  anew 
principle  of  life.  Christ  was  head  of  a  new  creation, 
as  Adam  was  head  of  an  old.  And  by  the  regener- 
ating influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  all  true  believers 
are  made  partakers  of  Him,  as  by  natural  descent 
we  are  all  partakers  of  the  first  man.  This  is  the 
Bread  which  came  down  from  heaven,  of  which,  if  a 
man  eat,  he  shall  never  die.  That  infinite  love 
which  opens  its  hand  daily  and  satisfies  the  desire 
of  every  living  thing,  which  fed  Israel  with  manna 


336  CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE. 

in  the  long  march  through  the  wilderness,  in  the 
fullness  of  time  gave  the  world  this  true  Bread  from 
heaven  to  eat.  It  was  given  for  the  nourishment  of 
men  ;  for  the  spiritual  food  of  such  as  through  long 
ages  of  sin  and  darkness  had  been  starving  upon 
husks.  Received  into  the  believing  soul,  it  was  life 
eternal. 

2.  The  insight  we  have  thus  gained  into  the  na- 
ture of  the  Bread  of  Life  will  at  once  suggest  the  sec- 
ond question,  How  are  we  led  to  crave  it  ?  We  are 
drawn  to  seek  our  natural  food  by  the  natural  de- 
sires and  wants  implanted  in  us.  Our  appetites  are 
the  unmistakable  hints  that  nature  gives  us,  telling 
us  what  it  is  we  need.  It  is  not  reason,  it  is  not 
reflection,  it  is  not  intelligent  foresight  and  care  for 
self-preservation,  that  lead  the  child  to  as.k  for  food. 
He  knows  nothing  of  the  kinds  of  food  best  suited 
to  him  ;  he  knows  nothing  of  the  necessity  of  food 
to  sustain  his  life  from  day  to  day  ;  with  him  it  is 
an  instinctive  craving  and  prompting  of  natural  de- 
sire, the  involuntary  working  in  him  of  the  great 
laws  of  that  physical  world  of  which  himself  is  part. 
Were  he  left  to  follow  the  dictates  of  reason  and  re- 
flection before  he  tasted  his  first  food,  he  would  in- 
evitably starve.  We  call  these  promptings  instinct. 
These  are  seen  not  in  man  alone,  but  in  all  living 
things.  The  very  flowers,  by  an  instinct  of  their 
own,  seek  the  light,  and  the  roots  of  trees  grope 
about  in  the  dark  chambers  of  the  earth  for  damp 
and  mellow  spots.  We  call  it  a  law  of  growth  ;  but 
whether  we  call  it  instinct  or  law,  it  is  all  the  same. 
It  is  the  invisible  power  of  God  working  in  all 
things  and  through  all  things,  and  bringing  all 
things  to  pass  in  the  fit   time  and  season  ;  doing 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE.  337 

whatsoever  pleases  Him  in  heaven  and  in  earth,  in 
the  seas  and  in  all  deep  places  ;  causing  the  grass 
to  grow,  and  feeding  the  young  ravens  when  they 
cry.  Wherever  we  turn  we  are  compassed  about 
with  the  divine  arms  of  this  all-embracing  Spirit. 
The  heart  refuses  at  the  bidding  of  a  blind  science 
to  put  it  aside  as  the  working  of  mere  natural  laws. 
The  laws  of  nature,  —  what  are  they  but  established 
and  familiar  modes  of  God's  operation  ?  It  is  His 
hand  that  sober  wisdom  sees  in  everything.  Our 
hunger  and  thirst,  our  weariness,  our  aches  and 
pains,  even,  are  only  His  tender  monitions.  They 
waken  in  us  the  sense  of  those  wants  which  his 
goodness  is  waiting  to  satisfy. 

Shall  we  scruple  to  believe  that  in  his  grander 
spiritual  creation  the  divine  Maker  works  in  analo- 
gous ways  ;  that  there,  too,  his  ever-watchful,  be- 
nignant providence  in  the  same  manifold  arrange- 
ments compasses  us  about  ;  and  when  we  know  not 
what  are  our  most  crying  wants,  when  we  are  all 
unconscious  of  our  deepest  needs,  when  we  are  too 
much  blinded  by  sin  to  realize  our  actual  condition, 
that  His  infinite  compassion  in  the  same  way  awak- 
ens in  our  souls  the  slumbering  spiritual  instincts, 
and  causes  us  to  hunger  and  to  thirst  after  life  eter- 
nal ;  that  when,  in  the  weakness  and  infancy  of  our 
spiritual  being,  we  do  not  take  in  the  tremendous 
issues  of  life  and  death,  nor  see  that  we  need  to  be 
fed  daily  with  this  true  and  living  Bread,  nor  yet  un- 
derstand by  any  intelligent  perception  and  reflection 
of  our  own  how  our  spiritual  wants  may  be  supplied, 
—  that  then  His  merciful  spirit  takes  possession  of 
us,  lifting  us  up  from  our  own  weakness  into  the 

strength  and  blessedness  of  His  divine  guidance  ? 
22 


338  CHRIST,    THE   BREAD   OF  LIFE. 

This  was  our  Saviour's  meaning  when  to  the  Jews 
who  murmured  because  He  said,  "  I  am  the  Bread 
which  came  down  from  heaven,"  He  answered,  "  No 
man  can  come  to  me  except  the  Father  which  hath 
sent  me  draw  him."  Does  this  seem  a  hard  say- 
ing? Are  there  those  in  our  day  as  well  as  Christ's 
who  cannot  bear  it  ?  But  no  mountain  oak  thrusts 
its  gnarled  roots  into  the  rents  and  fissures  provided 
for  it ;  no  bird  pursues  its  unerring  way  through  the 
pathless  tracts  of  air ;  no  young  lion  goes  in  search 
of  its  prey,  unless  our  Heavenly  Father  draweth  it. 
Nothing  is  left  to  itself.  All  things  are  impelled 
and  driven  and  drawn  and  awakened  to  act  by  a 
spirit  that  dwelleth  within  them.  Over  the  whole 
creation  the  great  truth  is  written,  "  It  is  not  we  that 
work,  but  God  that  worketh  in  us."  Whether  we 
cry  out  for  our  daily  bread,  or  whether  we  cry,  "  Lord, 
evermore  give  us  the  true  and  living  Bread,"  it  is 
our  Heavenly  Father  that  first  quickens  the  yearn- 
ing in  our  breasts. 

And  even  as  in  his  natural  creation  God  tempts 
and  solicits  our  appetites  with  all  manner  of  food 
that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight  and  good  for  food,  paint- 
ing the  fruits  with  luscious  tints,  and  bathing  them 
with  fragrance,  so  He  stirs  our  slumbering  spiritual 
senses  with  the  visible  presence  and  beauty  of  his 
divine  life  among  us  ;  bidding  us  behold  his  glory, 
the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full 
of  grace  and  truth.  He  sets  before  us  One  fairer 
than  the  children  of  men  ;  One  anointed  with  the  oil 
of  gladness  above  his  fellows,  all  whose  garments 
smell  of  myrrh  and  aloes  and  cassia.  He  seeks  to 
rouse  our  dormant  yearnings  by  the  vision  of  One 
altogether  lovely.     He  entices  us  with  the  fruit  of 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE.  339 

the  tree  of  life.  He  leads  us  gently  beside  the 
springs  of  living  water.  By  the  working  of  his  own 
Spirit  in  us  He  stimulates  our  thirst.  In  the  wea- 
riness and  want  and  disquietude  of  life  there  falls  on 
our  ears  the  invitation,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that 
labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

And  when  of  the  sick  man,  languishing  on  his 
bed,  refusing  to  be  tempted  with  food,  turning  away 
with  loathing  from  the  most  delicate  viands  that 
skill  can  suggest  or  tenderest  affection  press  to  his 
lips,  we  draw  sorrowful  conclusions,  believing  that 
his  end  is  nigh,  what  inference  shall  we  draw  re- 
specting the  nature  and  intensity  of  that  disease 
that  afflicts  the  soul,  — that  disease  that  has  so  com- 
pletely blunted  its  appetite  for  truth  and  holiness 
that  when  even  the  Bread  of  Life  is  put  before  it  it 
feels  no  desire  to  taste  ?  If  we  begin  to  take  alarm 
when  our  daily  food  no  longer  tempts,  if  we  begin 
to  suspect  that  some  secret  disease  is  poisoning  the 
springs  of  life,  can  we  feel  wholly  unconcerned 
when  the  great  things  of  the  spiritual  world  no  longer 
take  hold  on  us,  —  when  we  find  ourselves  fast  sink- 
ing into  a  state  of  stupid  indifference  respecting  our 
responsibilities  as  immortal  beings  ? 

3.  Having  thus  seen  how  the  appetite  is  first 
wakened  in  us,  let  us  further  consider  how  it  is 
that  we  eat  the  Bread.  How  is  it  that  Christ  is 
made  our  daily  food  ?  Clearly  we  do  not  live  merely 
by  having  our  appetite  awakened.  The  bird,  the 
beast,  the  child,  must  do  something  more  than  feel 
the  pangs  of  hunger.  Even  the  food  in  itself  is 
nothing  ;  it  is  the  food  digested,  assimilated,  made 
a  part  of  the  system  by  the  subtle  chemistry  of  the 
body,  that  alone  strengthens  man.    In  the  same  way 


340  CHRIS  r,    THE  BREAD    OF  LIFE. 

our  spiritual  yearnings,  left  to  themselves,  accom- 
plish nothing.  It  does  us  no  good  to  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness  if  we  do  nothing  but  hun- 
ger and  thirst.  Only  he  that  eateth  the  Bread  hath 
eternal  life.  Besides  the  divine  drawing,  then,  that 
first  impels,  we  have  ourselves  a  work  to  do.  By 
our  readiness  to  seize  the  heaven-sent  opportunity, 
and  by  our  diligence  in  using  it,  the  blessing  must 
be  secured.  The  question  is,  then,  craving  the 
Bread,  how  shall  we  eat  ? 

Words  need  not  be  multiplied  in  answering  this 
question.  The  secret  springs  of  life  eternal,  the 
first  dim  yearnings  of  the  soul,  may  lie  far  back 
in  God's  eternal  providence  ;  but  the  stream  is  clear  ; 
the  path  we  all  have  to  tread  is  so  plain  that  the 
wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  need  not  err  therein. 
We  taste  the  bread  of  life  only  as  we  become  the 
partakers  of  Christ.  We  eat  his  flesh  and  drink 
his  blood  only  so  far  as  we  enter  into  living  fellow- 
ship with  Him.  To  know  Him  is  life  eternal ;  but 
we  can  know  Him  truly  by  no  mere  intellectual 
search,  by  no  mere  sentimental  worship  ;  we  can 
know  Him  only  by  the  plain,  honest,  practical  method 
of  obeying  his  precepts.  "  If  any  man,"  says  He, 
"  will  be  my  disciple,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take 
up  his  cross  and  follow  me."  The  bread  and  the 
wine  of  which  He  bade  us  partake  as  perpetual  me- 
morials were  memorials  of  a  sacrifice,  the  meaning 
and  reality  of  which  we  must  ourselves  experience. 

If  we  would  taste  the  divine  food  we  must  be 
willing,  like  our  blessed  Master,  to  make  it  our  meat 
and  our  drink,  to  do  the  will  of  our  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.  We  must  learn  to  care  more  for  the 
immortal  soul  than  for  the  perishing  body  ;  we  must 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE.  341 

seek  the  kingdom  of  heaven  before  we  seek  any 
worldly  gain  or  advantage.  We  must  gladly  count 
all  else  as  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord.  We  must  find  in  Him 
our  supreme  and  perfect  delight.  The  gospel  recog- 
nizes no  other  mode  of  abiding  in  Christ  except  this 
practical  mode  of  making  Him  our  only  model,  and 
pressing  on  towards  Him  as  the  mark  set  before 
us.  We  must  be  like  Him  to  know  Him  as  He  is. 
Through  the  mysterious  alchemy  of  a  daily  com- 
munion must  He  be  made  our  life,  and  we  be  trans- 
formed into  his  image.  The  path  that  He  trod  lies 
before  each  one  of  us.  We  must  be  ready  to  do  his 
will  if  we  would  know,  by  experience,  his  doctrine. 

This  may  be  a  hard  road,  but  no  one  can  deny 
that  it  is  a  straight  and  a  plain  road.  And  though 
hard  to  travel  by  our  own  unassisted  strength,  yet 
He  who  has  been  pleased  to  hide  from  the  wise  and 
the  prudent  the  things  that  are  revealed  to  babes 
causes  many  a  weak  child  to  run  along  it  and  not  be 
weary,  to  walk  in  it  and  not  faint.  Many  a  hum- 
ble spirit,  but  scantily  furnished  with  mere  intel- 
lectual knowledge  of  Christ ;  far  removed  from  the 
imposing  rites  which  kindle  the  imagination  and 
work  upon  the  natural  sensibilities  ;  struggling  with 
the  hard  trials  of  common  life,  with  little  sympathy 
or  help  from  those  around,  but  entering  through 
the  mystery  of  its  own  temptation  into  the  deeper 
mystery  of  its  tempted  Lord  ;  sustained  by  his  pres- 
ence, and  lifted  above  all  earthly  struggles  to  the 
joy  of  his  companionship,  has  been  brought  to  un- 
derstand the  meaning  of  his  declaration  that  man 
liveth  not  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that 
proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God ! 


342  CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OF  LIFE. 

We  may  sometimes  be  led  to  ask  ourselves  the 
question,  whether  we  are  deriving  the  nourishment 
that  we  should  from  divine  truth.  It  may  be  our 
lot  to  live  in  the  midst  of  unusual  religious  oppor- 
tunities ;  we  may  be  accustomed  to  a  frequent  hear- 
ing of  the  Gospel,  we  may  be  strict  and  constant  in 
our  attendance  upon  public  worship,  and  yet  it  may 
be  that  we  do  not  grow  in  the  divine  life,  we  may 
find  that  we  are  losing  our  interest  in  religious 
truth  ;  the  preaching  of  the  word  may  seem  cold 
and  profitless.  Alas,  no  religious  advantages  have 
in  themselves  any  power  to  feed  the  soul.  The 
purest  and  most  earnest  preaching,  the  preaching 
of  an  inspired  apostle,  nay,  the  preaching  of  Christ 
himself,  can  minister  nutriment  to  the  spiritual  na- 
ture only  so  far  as  it  shapes  our  lives.  It  is  not  by 
hearing  but  by  obeying  that  we  grow  ;  just  as  our 
natural  strength  is  not  in  proportion  to  what  we  eat, 
but  in  proportion  to  what  we  digest,  and  make  part 
of  ourselves.  We  are  not  fed,  because,  in  some 
solemn  gathering,  borne  away  by  the  full  tide  of 
awakened  feeling,  we  are  rapt  into  heavenly  ec- 
stasy ;  we  are  not  fed  because  beneath  the  magic 
sway  of  some  great  pulpit  orator  we  are  alternately 
roused  and  terrified  and  melted ;  we  are  truly  fed 
by  the  bread  of  life  only  when  we  come  ourselves 
to  live  by  it ;  only  when  we  bear  about  with  us  in 
all  our  common  walks  the  body  of  Christ ;  when  we 
are  made  to  drink  of  his  cup  and  be  baptized  with 
his  baptism. 

Is  it  then  our  first  and  great  desire  to  be  fed  daily 
with  this  true  and  living  bread  ?  Is  it  our  earliest 
prayer  as  we  rise  in  the  morning,  is  it  the  burden 
that  rests  on  our  hearts  during  the  toil  of  the  day, 


CHRIST,    THE  BREAD   OE  LIEE.  343 

not  that  we  may  prosper  in  our  gettings,  not  that  we 
may  be  increased  in  worldly  goods,  in  reputation 
and  honor  with  men,  but  that  before  all  else  we  may 
be  nourished  with  this  divine  food  ?  Could  the 
thoughts  and  wishes  that  daily  occupy  us  be  ana- 
lyzed and  exposed  to  our  view,  would  this  petition 
be  found  lying  at  the  roots  of  all  other  aims  and 
hopes  "  Lord,  evermore  give  us  this  bread  "  ?  Can 
we  expect  to  grow  in  the  divine  life  if  we  do  not  dil- 
igently practice  the  divine  precepts  ?  Can  we  be 
fed  by  the  living  bread  while  we  surfeit  ourselves 
with  the  meat  that  perisheth  ?  Can  we  live  by  faith 
of  the  Son  of  Man  when  in  all  our  practical  con- 
cerns we  give  so  much  more  thought,  so  much  more 
care,  so  much  more  anxiety  to  the  things  which  are 
seen  and  temporal,  than  to  the  things  which  are  un- 
seen and  eternal  ? 

"  Lord,  evermore  give  us  this  bread,"  do  we  re- 
alize how  momentous  for  every  soul  among  us  is 
this  request  ?  Do  we  feel  how  small  and  trivial  a 
matter  it  is  what  we  shall  eat,  and  what  we  shall 
drink,  and  how  we  shall  be  clothed,  in  the  few  days 
of  our  earthly  life,  compared  with  the  great  and  over- 
whelming question,  What  shall  be  the  nourishment 
and  support  of  our  immortal  parts  ?  What  shall 
we  eat  and  what  shall  we  drink  ?  Shall  we  eat  the 
bread  of  pride  and  worldliness,  and  drink  the  bitter 
water  of  disappointment  and  remorse  and  despair  ; 
or  shall  we  eat  the  true  bread  that  cometh  down 
from  heaven,  and  drink  of  the  water  that  springeth 
up  unto  everlasting  life  ?  There  is  only  One  that 
can  satisfy.  He  is  the  Bread  of  Life.  He  that 
cometh  to  Him  shall  never  hunger ;  and  he  that  be- 
lieveth  on  Him  shall  never  thirst. 


CHRIST   IN    THE    POWER   OF    HIS 
RESURRECTION.1 


That  I  may  know  Him  and  the  power  of  his  resurrection.  —  Phil. 


in.  10. 


This  prayer  of  the  Apostle,  that  he  might  know 
the  power  of  his  Lord's  resurrection,  so  far  as  the 
mere  language  is  concerned,  may  be  interpreted  in 
two  ways.  It  may  mean  a  desire  to  comprehend 
the  nature  of  that  supernatural  agency  or  power  by 
which  the  resurrection  was  effected,  or  a  desire  to 
understand  the  influence  or  power  which  the  resur- 
rection was  fitted  to  exert.  In  the  one  case  it  would 
be  a  speculative,  in  the  other  a  practical,  inquiry. 
That  it  was  the  latter  aspect  of  the  inquiry  which 
presented  itself  to  the  Apostle's  mind,  may  be  in- 
ferred as  well  from  the  general  tenor  of  his  teaching 
as  from  the  specific  drift  of  the  context  in  which  the 
phrase  is  embedded.  He,  whose  uniform  habit  it  is 
to  view  spiritual  truth  as  vested  in  some  actual  ex- 
perience, seems  in  this  exultant  utterance  of  faith, 
so  soon  to  be  changed  to  sight,  to  insist  with  more 
than  usual  energy  on  the  connection  between  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  Christian  life.  True,  the  resur- 
rection was  a  great  fact,  the  primary  truth  of  apos- 
tolic doctrine,  the   doctrine   which    dominated  the 

1  Written  in  1874. 


THE  POWER   OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     345 

faith  of  the  apostolic  church.  No  Apostle  was 
prompter  than  St.  Paul  himself  to  concede  it  this 
preeminence.  In  his  view  it  was  the  corner-stone 
of  the  whole  fabric  of  Christian  teaching.  If  it 
were  not  true,  his  associates  in  the  great  work  of 
founding  the  church  had  propagated  a  lie,  and  all 
preaching  is  vain.  Whether  before  the  skeptical 
Agrippa  or  the  mocking  Athenians,  he  never  puts  it 
in  the  background.  In  all  his  epistles  to  his  breth- 
ren it  is  insisted  on  as  the  impregnable  basis  of 
belief. 

The  resurrection  as  an  actual  fact  of  history,  a 
fact  which  multitudes  who  had  been  admitted  to 
intercourse  with  the  risen  Christ  were  ready  to  at- 
test, was  the  most  powerful  weapon  with  which  the 
apostolic  church  confronted  the  bigotry  and  indiffer- 
ence of  Jew  and  Gentile.  In  no  other  way,  save  in 
the  assumption  of  the  reality  of  this  event,  can  we 
account  for  the  marvelous  transformation  of  the 
church  itself,  which  so  swiftly  converted  the  doubt- 
ing disciples,  who  fled  from  their  Lord's  last  agony, 
into  preachers,  who  stood  undismayed  before  the 
judgment  seat  of  kings. 

To  our  critical,  hesitating  minds,  the  questions 
that  most  naturally  suggest  themselves  in  connec- 
tion with  such  a  mysterious  phenomenon  are  ques- 
tions as  to  the  agency  by  which  it  was  effected. 
We  shrink  from  admitting  so  stupendous  a  break 
of  the  natural  order ;  we  curiously  scan  the  testi- 
mony ;  we  note  the  seeming  contradictions  ;  nay, 
we  even  turn  from  it  in  a  kind  of  sad  perplexity, 
as  something  too  hard  to  be  believed,  and  yet 
too  well  attested  to  be  utterly  denied,  and  so  in 
our  scheme  of  faith  it  stands  too  often  an  insoluble 


346     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

enigma  outside  the  circle  of  our  shaping  religious 
thought. 

But  this  speculative  solution  of  the  mystery  was 
not  what  the  Apostle  desired  to  know.  What  he 
craves  is  a  knowledge  of  the  resurrection  as  a  vital 
and  as  a  vitalizing  truth ;  not  an  explanation  of  its 
external  circumstance,  but  an  experience  of  its  spir- 
itual power.  To  him  it  is  not  a  bare  historic  fact, 
nor  mere  fulfillment  of  old  prediction,  nor  tran- 
scendent demonstration  even  of  the  divine  authority 
of  Christ ;  it  was  all  this,  but  more ;  it  was  closely 
knit  with  his  own  experience  ;  a  fruitful  principle, 
and  spiritual  energy,  the  shaping  law  of  that  new 
life  which  he  no  longer  lived  in  the  flesh,  but  by  the 
faith  of  the  Son  of  God.  To  know  Christ,  there- 
fore, in  the  power  of  his  resurrection  in  this  sense, 
which  the  Apostle  meant,  was  to  know  those  spirit- 
ual influences  which  proceed  from  the  resurrection 
as  a  central  principle  or  law.  Or,  in  other  words,  it 
is  to  experience  the  power  of  the  risen  Christ  in  his 
relation  to  our  own  spiritual  life ;  to  recognize  Him 
as  our  living  head  ;  to  walk  with  Him  in  the  new 
life  of  a  personal  communion  ;  to  have  our  lives  hid 
with  Him  in  God.  This  is  the  knowledge  that  the 
Apostle  craves,  and  beside  the  excellency  of  which 
he  counts  all  else  as  loss.  This  is  the  mark  to  which 
he  presses  forward.  Much  of  his  language,  in 
speaking  of  this  knowledge,  may  seem  but  meta- 
phor, yet,  if  we  look  closely,  he  is  describing  no 
shadowy  or  unsubstantial  thing.  He  is  dealing  with 
the  great  facts  of  the  spiritual  life  ;  he  is  describ- 
ing something  that  lies  close  to  the  actual  experi- 
ence of  the  soul ;  not  a  dreamer  of  idle  dreams,  but 
a  man  sorely  tried  and  buffeted  in  life's  great  strug- 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.    347 

gle,  and  writing  to  men  who  had  themselves  suffered 
too  much  in  behalf  of  Christ  to  be  put  off  with 
sounding  words.  We  seem  to  hear  the  strong  tones 
of  a  great  spiritual  hero,  not  the  shrill  accents  of  a 
heated  enthusiast,  when  he  declares  "  It  is  no  longer 
I  that  live,  but  Christ  that  liveth  in  me."  We  can- 
not, in  fact,  read  a  page  of  his  epistles  without  being 
struck  by  the  practical  power  always  exercised  over 
him  by  this  ever-present  sense  of  his  personal  rela- 
tion to  the  risen  Christ.  From  the  day  when  his 
bold,  uncompromising,  intolerant  career  received 
such  sudden  check,  as  he  was  struck  down  on  his 
journey  to  Damascus,  on  to  the  hour  when  he 
penned  these  burning  utterances  beneath  the  very 
shadow  of  Caesar's  palace,  his  life  was  pervaded  and 
glorified  with  this  conviction.  He  who  had  never 
seen  Christ  after  the  flesh  seemed  to  walk  ever  with 
him  in  the  closeness  and  reality  of  a  more  than 
mortal  intercourse. 

Whether  it  is  meant  that  most  disciples  should 
reach  this  high  mark  and  taste  the  blissful  expe- 
rience of  the  Apostle  who  was  deemed  worthy  to 
be  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven,  and  who  heard 
unspeakable  words  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  man 
to  utter,  we  may  not  say  ;  yet  many  of  his  declara- 
tions without  doubt  imply  that  this  practical  expe- 
rience of  the  power  of  the  resurrection  is  designed 
to  enter  into  all  earnest  Christian  life.  Not  to 
know  Christ  in  this  way  is  to  lose  out  of  our  spirit- 
ual experience  its  most  animating  principle  ;  not 
to  know  Him  thus  is  to  turn  to  the  dead  past  and 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  living  present. 

Two  considerations  at  the  outset  will  help  us  to 
apprehend  the  meaning  of  this  phrase. 


348     THE  POWER   OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

In  the  first  place  such  experience  of  the  power 
of  the  resurrection  is  obviously  an  experience  that 
can  be  tasted  only  by  believers.  It  is  the  prayer  of 
the  great  Apostle  that  he  himself  might  know  it ; 
it  is  to  his  brethren  that  the  exhortation  is  ad- 
dressed that  they  should  press  on  to  know  it  also. 
In  other  words,  whatever  may  be  the  precise  nature 
of  such  experience,  it  is  not  an  experience  arising 
from  the  ordinary  conditions  of  human  life,  but  is  a 
special  and  distinctive  prerogative  of  Christian  faith. 
The  Apostle  in  this  epistle  is  not  addressing  the  un- 
believing world  but  his  dear  Philippians,  his  loved 
and  longed  for,  his  joy  and  crown,  to  whom  his 
thoughts  turned  with  delight,  the  very  remembrance 
of  whom  lifted  his  soul  in  thankfulness  to  God.  In 
the  flowing  confidence  of  a  spiritual  communion  and 
sympathy  which  no  separation  could  impair,  he  writes 
to  them  of  those  joys  and  hopes  of  the  inner  life 
which  only  a  common  faith  could  enable  them  to 
understand.  He  lifts  the  veil  of  the  spiritual  tem- 
ple, and  beckons  them  within  the  holy  place.  His 
pregnant  sayings  can  have  no  meaning  but  to  those 
who  lived  in  the  same  circle  of  supernatural  con- 
victions with  himself. 

Nor  is  there  anything  singular  in  this.  The  res- 
urrection itself,  viewed  in  its  main  design,  was  sub- 
ject to  the  same  limitations.  It  has  been  common 
to  speak  of  the  resurrection  as  a  great  crowning 
miracle,  the  primary  design  of  which  was  to  con- 
vince an  unbelieving  world  by  a  conclusive  demon- 
stration of  the  divine  power  of  Christ.  But  were 
this  its  leading  aim  it  is  hard  to  see  why  Christ 
only  showed  himself  in  such  mysterious  and  per- 
plexing ways  ;  why  He  showed  himself  to  his  disci- 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     349 

pies  only.  If  his  rising  from  the  dead  was  meant 
as  convincing  proof  for  all,  why  did  He  not  show 
himself  to  those  who  sent  Him  to  death  ;  why  did 
He  not  show  himself  again  in  the  streets  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  let  his  voice  be  heard  once  more  in  the 
Temple  courts  ?  He  did  nothing  of  all  this.  He 
displayed  himself  to  his  disciples  ;  He  spoke  to  those 
who  already  believed  in  his  name ;  in  all  his  move- 
ments during  the  mysterious  period  of  forty  days 
that  intervened  between  his  resurrection  and  his 
ascension  He  most  evidently  indicated  that  the  great 
and  primary  purpose  of  the  resurrection  was  not  so 
much  to  furnish  a  new  weapon  to  the  armory  of 
Christian  evidence,  as  to  supply  a  new  agency  in 
the  development  of  Christian  faith.  The  resurrec- 
tion was  not  meant  as  a  thaumaturgical  display,  but 
as  a  spiritual  power. 

And,  secondly,  the  foregoing  considerations  sug- 
gest a  further  condition  under  which  alone  it  is 
possible  for  the  soul  to  experience  the  power  of  the 
resurrection,  that  is,  that  the  recognition  of  Christ 
in  the  communion  and  sympathy  of  his  risen  life  is, 
in  every  case,  the  result  of  a  practical  expression  of 
his  human  life.  This  condition  is  implied  in  the 
verses,  of  which  our  text  forms  a  part,  where  the 
Apostle  prays  that  he  may  know  Christ  in  the  power 
of  his  resurrection  and  in  the  fellowship  of  his  suf- 
fering. There  is  a  unity  of  Christian  experience  ; 
it  is  not  something  artificial  and  disjointed,  but 
forms  an  organic  whole  like  the  vine  and  its  branches. 
There  is  but  one  door  by  which  we  all  enter  in.  The 
Apostle's  writings  abound  with  emphatic  statement 
of  this  principle.  If  we  would  rise  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  spiritual  level,  after  the  great  analogy  of 


350     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

Christ's  resurrection,  we  must  first  taste  the  death 
of  self-renunciation  and  self-sacrifice  and  of  struggle 
with  our  lower  nature.  We  cannot  be  planted  in 
the  likeness  of  his  resurrection  unless  first  planted 
in  the  likeness  of  his  death.  "  Therefore,"  says  the 
Apostle,  "  we  are  buried  with  Him  by  baptism  unto 
death  ;  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up  from  the 
dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father  even  so  we  also 
should  walk  in  newness  of  life."  Life  out  of  death 
is  the  universal  law. 

To  know  Christ,  therefore,  in  the  power  of  his 
resurrection  we  must  first  know  Him  in  the,  fellow- 
ship of  his  sufferings  and  death.  The  suffering 
Christ  is  the  central  figure  on  which  the  thought 
and  faith  of  the  increasing  years  concentrate.  It 
was  the  figure  that  the  prophet  saw  in  vision  when 
he  told  of  One  who  should  be  despised  and  rejected 
and  whose  visage  should  be  marred  ;  it  is  the  figure 
on  which  Christian  art  has  lavished  her  most  con- 
summate touch.  The  Man  of  Sorrows  remains  the 
great  marvel  of  time.  By  what  mysterious  law  of 
moral  government  the  Son  of  God  was  thus  made 
to  suffer  and  die  has  been  the  perplexing  question 
of  Christian  thought.  This  question  seems  in  part, 
at  least,  solved  when  we  come  to  look  at  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ  as  the  divine  analogy  of  our  own 
spiritual  lives.  "  For  it  became  Him,"  we  are  told, 
"  for  whom  are  all  things  and  by  whom  are  all 
things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory  to  make 
the  captain  of  their  salvation  perfect  through  suffer- 
ing." In  this  view  the  sufferings  of  Christ  cease 
to  be  something  anomalous  and  strange.  They  il- 
lustrate a  universal  principle.  His  death  on  the 
cross  no  longer  stands  apart.    We  too  must  die  unto 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     35  I 

sin  would  we  attain  unto  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead.  "  For  even  hereunto,"  says  the  Apostle,  "were 
ye  called  because  Christ  hath  suffered  for  us,  leav- 
ing us  an  example  that  ye  should  follow  in  his 
steps." 

The  traveler  who  speeds  from  Rome  to  Naples, 
in  his  luxurious  railway  carriage,  as  he  catches  the 
view  on  the  overhanging  height  of  the  famous  mon- 
astery where  Benedict  gathered  his  first  disciples, 
and  imposed  the  rule  destined  for  a  thousand  years 
to  rally  the  most  earnest  faith  of  Christendom,  is 
apt  to  think  of  monastic  virtues  as  not  less  obso- 
lete than  the  feudal  compact.  It  may  be  that  self- 
renunciation  and  self-sacrifice  are  not  conspicuous 
features  of  modern  Christianity.  But  the  principle 
which  Benedict,  perhaps  unwisely,  hardened  into 
rule  can  never  be  obsolete.  It  is  old  as  Christianity, 
and  can  only  die  with  Faith  itself.  "  If  any  man 
will  come  after  me  let  him  deny  himself  and  take 
up  his  cross  and  follow  me,"  remains  still  the  divine 
injunction.  Spiritual  insight  cannot  be  purchased 
with  easy  living.  The  elect  spirits  to  whom  has 
been  vouchsafed  the  inner  intuition  have  always 
been  the  crucified  ones.  The  mystery  of  suffering- 
is  not  a  problem  for  the  intellect  to  solve ;  the  law 
of  life  has  never  been  summed  up  in  any  dogmatic 
statement.  They  alone  have  known  the  Christ  of 
God  who  have  been  made  partakers  of  his  suffer- 
ings. He  was  first-born  among  many  brethren. 
The  path  He  trod  is  the  straight  and  narrow  way 
that  lies  before  each  one  of  them. 

With  these  preliminary  considerations,  we  may 
advance  more  safely  in  explication  of  our  text.  And 
the  first  and  most  obvious  result  of  this  knowing 


352     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

Christ  in  the  power  of  his  resurrection  is  the  quick 
ening  of  our  sense  of  supernatural  things.  I  use 
the  term  simply  to  designate  that  which  lies  above 
that  ordinary  plane  of  natural  things  in  which  as 
creatures  of  time  and  sense  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.  It  is  nothing  to  our  present  pur- 
pose to  determine  anything  respecting  the  relation 
of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural.  For  aught  we 
know  they  may  be  but  two  sides  of  the  same  truth, 
blending  to  the  infinite  eye  in  pure  and  simple 
white,  but  which  as  relative  to  us  seem  distinct. 
We  recognize  in  our  habitual  speech  the  distinction 
between  things  seen  and  things  not  seen,  we  draw  a 
line  between  the  temporal  and  the  eternal. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  all  religion  rests  on  the 
recognition  of  this  distinction.  The  savage  who 
carves  out  his  unshapely  idol  instinctively  expresses 
his  dim  sense  of  something  above  that  ordinary 
world  in  which  he  lives.  If  this  distinction  be  ob- 
literated, religion  is  reduced  to  the  sphere  of  com- 
mon human  ethics.  It  rests  on  human  sanctions. 
It  must  rise  above  them  ;  it  must  reach  up  to  a 
higher  sphere;  it  must  incorporate  into  itself  ener- 
gies of  a  different  kind  to  become  a  practical  prin- 
ciple of  faith  and  worship.  The  point  is  too  plain 
to  need  any  argument  ;  the  very  essence  of  religion 
is  the  instinctive  recognition  of  a  something  above 
ourselves  which  we  call  the  supernatural.  No  psy- 
chological analysis  of  human  nature  can  fail  to  recog- 
nize this  instinct.  It  belongs  to  man  as  man.  He 
is  not  more  certainly  a  social  being  than  he  is  a  re- 
ligious being.  Speech  is  not  a  more  universal  im- 
pulse than  is  worship.  And  when  under  the  blight- 
ing influence  of  some  false  system  of  metaphysics 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     353 

he  has,  in  a  few  individual  instances,  succeeded  in 
suppressing  this  instinctive  tendency,  his  own  sad 
confessions  testify  to  his  haunting  sense  of  unrest 
and  want.  And  if  individuals  have  in  a  few  instances 
achieved  the  melancholy  distinction  of  ignoring  the 
supernatural,  and  living  without  God,  nations  have 
never  done  so.  The  basis  of  historic  progress  has 
been  this  recognition.  That  continuous  develop- 
ment which  has  come  down  through  the  centuries, 
and  now  bears  us  along  in  its  mighty  sweep,  began 
with  the  patriarch  of  whom  it  is  emphatically  said 
that  he  believed  God.  The  great  empires  that  tow- 
ered in  colossal  majesty  around  him  have  passed 
away,  but  he  still  lives.  That  faith  in  the  supernat- 
ural which  led  him  away  from  his  own  country  is 
essentially  our  faith,  and  his  name  is  a  household 
word  to-day  in  either  hemisphere. 

Now  Christianity  is  peculiar  in  the  distinctive 
prominence  which  it  assigns  these  supernatural 
agencies.  In  other  religions  the  supernatural  exists 
as  a  dim  border  land  surrounding  our  human  life, 
the  future  is  an  undiscovered  country  from  which 
no  traveler  has  returned ;  the  vague  realm  where 
disembodied  spirits  flit  in  a  doubtful  identity  and 
recognition  ;  but  in  Christianity  the  supernatural 
and  natural  exist  together,  thev  interpenetrate  each 
other  ;  the  soul  is  the  perfect  synthesis  of  these  two 
spheres  which  to  the  natural  understanding  seem 
so  wide  apart.  It  is  not  left  to  seek  in  the  distant 
future  its  supreme  felicity  —  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  in  itself. 

The  gospel  presents  itself  to  us  in  various  aspects, 
and  in  all  of  these  it  challenges  attention.  It  is  a 
wondrous  history,  telling  in  language  that  children 
23 


354     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

can  understand,  the  most  sublime,  pathetic  storv 
recorded  in  any  literature  ;  it  is  a  mighty  code  of 
ethics  touching  the  conscience  at  more  points,  and 
testing  human  action  more  profoundly  than  most 
subtle  rules  of  casuistry  ;  all  subsequent  experience 
has  only  enlarged  its  application  and  illustrated  its 
sufficiency,  yet  we  do  not  begin  to  understand  its 
scope  or  feel  its  power  if  we  do  not  recognize  the 
fact  that  it  rests  throughout  on  the  presence  and 
constant  operation  in  us  of  the  invisible  things  of 
God. 

Now  the  resurrection  was  an  event  eminently 
fitted  to  intensify  this  sense  of  the  supernatural 
order.  What  with  the  disciples  had  been  a  vague, 
shadowy  belief  was  now  felt  in  the  power  of  an 
actual  experience.  Henceforth  to  them  the  earthy 
and  the  spiritual  seemed  no  longer  far  apart.  They 
tabernacled  in  both  worlds.  They  were  profoundly 
conscious  that  the  kingdom  which  they  had  so  ear- 
nestly expected  was  already  come ;  they  who  so 
lately  had  been  trembling  and  dismayed  were  con- 
verted to  men  of  heroic  mould  by  the  lofty  confi- 
dence that  they  were  the  children  of  God  and  that 
they  were  compassed  about  with  a  great  cloud  of 
witnesses.  In  thus  refusing  to  recognize  any  mid- 
dle wall  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible  the 
perfected  faith  of  the  disciples  agrees  with  the  trust- 
ful confidence  of  the  child.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
flings  wide  its  gates  to  both.  And  who  of  us  is 
willing  to  affirm  that  the  visions  vouchsafed  to  such 
as  these  are  but  the  phantasies  of  a  sick  brain. 
Who  that  has  journeyed  with  some  loved  one  to  the 
extremest  verge  of  life,  and  bent  tenderly  to  catch 
the  last  expiring  breath,  and  felt  the  solemn  awe  of 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     355 

that  supreme  moment  when  the  spirit  trembles  be- 
tween two  worlds,  but  has  felt  that  even  before  the 
earthly  house  is  dissolved  the  glory  of  the  heavenly 
is  revealed. 

I  know  in  history  no  more  pathetic  story  than  of 
the  slow,  lingering  death  of  the  boy-prince,  the  son 
of  the  unhappy  Louis  XVI.  Doomed  to  a  loath- 
some dungeon  for  no  other  offense  than  being  a 
king's  son,  shut  out  from  light  and  air,  fed  with  the 
miserable  food  of  the  vilest  malefactor,  consigned 
to  the  remorseless  tortures  of  a  monster  in  human 
shape ;  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  the  unresisting 
victim  kicked  and  beaten  because  he  would  not  re- 
vile his  mother's  memory  and  because  he  persisted 
in  saying,  by  his  wretched  cot,  the  prayer  he  had 
been  taught  to  utter  by  her  knee.  And  when  Na- 
ture, more  merciful  than  man,  brought  on  the  close 
of  the  long,  solitary  night  of  pain  and  anguish,  and 
the  last  morning  came,  and  the  dying  child,  in  an- 
swer to  the  inquiry  of  his  keeper,  whether  he  was 
in  pa^n,  murmured,  with  weak  voice,  "  Yes,  but  I 
hear  sweet  music  ;  I  hear  my  mother's  voice,"  who 
of  us  will  dare  to  say  that  this  was  mere  delusion 
with  which  his  fevered  brain  peopled  that  solitary 
cell,  or  that  if  he  dreamed,  it  was  not  such  dreams 
as  Jacob  had  ? 

But  the  soul  that  knows  Christ  in  the  power  of 
his  resurrection  goes  beyond  this.  It  is  not  simply 
the  general  sense  of  the  supernatural  that  is  thus 
intensified,  but  that  supernatural  sphere  is  brought 
closely  home  to  us  in  which  the  Son  of  Man  stands 
revealed  as  the  central  figure.  The  invisible  world 
is  no  longer  a  mere  spiritual  existence  ;  it  assumes 
a   definite   aspect,   it  is   revealed   in    distinct   rela- 


356     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

tions,  it  becomes  a  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  per- 
sonal soul  is  quickened  with  the  apprehension  of 
personal  affinities  ;  it  feels  more  than  mere  faith  in 
immortality  ;  as  it  gazes  steadfast  into  heaven,  like 
the  dying  Stephen,  it  sees  Jesus  standing  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  ! 

Hence  in  strictest  sense  the  power  of  the  resurrec- 
tion is  the  power  that  comes  from  the  communion 
with  a  living  person.  And  this,  we  must  believe, 
suggests  the  main  reason  why  Christ  thus  rose  from 
the  dead  and  showed  himself  to  his  wondering  dis- 
ciples. We  can,  indeed,  conceive  that,  without  the 
resurrection,  Christianity  might  have  been  estab- 
lished ;  that  when  the  first  bewilderment  of  grief 
was  over  the  disciples  might  have  come  together, 
and  might  have  called  to  mind  what  Christ  spoke 
when  on  earth,  and  might  have  organized  some  so- 
ciety for  the  diffusion  of  his  doctrine.  Then  would 
they  have  thought  of  Him,  as  they  thought  of  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  as  one  who  had  been  with  them 
for  a  season,  and  had  vanished  utterly  away.  But 
the  resurrection  would  not  allow  them  to  think  of 
the  Master  thus.  His  mysterious  intercourse  evi- 
dently established  a  sense  of  continued  personal 
relationship  which  they  could  have  gained  in  no 
other  way.  Henceforth  they  no  longer  thought  of 
Him  as  dead,  but  as  living,  —  as  living  in  a  spiritual 
communion  and  intercourse  with  his  disciples,  of 
the  closeness  and  reality  of  which  his  few  years  of 
earthly  sojourn  had  been  only  the  fleeting  and  im- 
perfect type.  They  did  not  seek  Him  in  the  grave; 
the  superstition  which  surrounded  with  such  halo 
the  place  of  his  sepulchre  belonged  to  a  later  age, 
when  the  vivid  sense  of  the  living  Christ  had  faded 
from  men's  hearts. 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     357 

Thus  while  on  the  one  hand  the  resurrection  freed 
the  disciples  from  the  sway  of  mere  earthly  memo- 
ries, so  that  they  no  longer  clung  to  the  mere  human 
Christ,  feeding  the  faith  with  the  cherished  recollec- 
tions of  his  human  ministry,  the  same  Christ  being 
now  exalted  above  the  heavens,  the  Lord  of  life,  not 
to  the  few  who  heard  his  voice,  but  to  all  who  should 
believe  on  his  name ;  so  just  as  much  on  the  other 
hand  it  kept  this  more  personal  faith  in  Him  from 
evaporating  into  any  vague  sense  of  spiritual  power 
and  might.  Though  they  might  not  any  longer 
identify  Him  with  mere  earthly  scenes,  yet  was  He 
the  same  Jesus  who  stretched  out  his  hand  to  Peter, 
and  who  wept  by  the  grave  of  Lazarus. 

The  power  of  the  resurrection  is,  therefore,  the 
power  of  sympathy  with  an  immortal  friend.  It  is 
the  distinctive  feature  of  all  highest  truth  that  it 
cannot  be  revealed  in  abstract  statements.  The 
moment  we  subject  it  to  rigid  analysis  and  defini- 
tion its  fragrance  and  bloom  depart.  Men  make  no 
drearier  mistake  than  when  they  fancy  that  they 
can  sum  up  truth  in  a  series  of  propositions.  Mere 
truths  of  relation  may  be  thus  stated  ;  but  truth  in 
the  highest  sense,  truth  of  character  and  life,  defies 
such  petty  manipulation.  No  religion  can  be  stated 
in  a  creed.  If  it  be  the  living  truth  it  can  only  be 
embodied  in  a  life ;  hence  the  Word  was  made  flesh, 
and  dwelt  among  us.  The  resurrection  perpetuates 
the  incarnation.  It  carries  on  and  renders  fruitful 
through  all  the  ages  the  distinctive  influence  that 
centred  in  the  Son  of  Man.  To  the  eye  of  faith  it 
holds  up  the  highest  truth  not  as  doctrine  to  be 
studied,  but  as  a  person  to  be  loved.  It  thus  sets 
in  motion  a  unique  system  of  spiritual  agencies.     It 


358     THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION. 

is  thus  that  Christ  becomes  the  living  head  of  that 
Church  which  is  his  body.  The  saving  influences 
that  ceaselessly  radiate  from  Him  are  vital  influences, 
—  the  influence  of  a  person  over  persons.  When 
looked  at  as  an  attempt  to  symbolize  this  central 
principle  of  the  new  creation,  the  mass  itself  seems 
more  than  unmeaning  mummery. 

Is  it  said  that  in  all  this  we  are  dealing  with  the 
ideal  ;  that  faith  itself  creates  these  relations  on 
which  it  seems  to  feed  ;  that  they  are  powerless  in 
presence  of  the  hard  realities  of  life  ?  But  can  we 
reduce  them  to  airy  nothing  without  denying  the 
fundamental  facts  on  which  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
Gospel  rests  ?  Can  we  deny  this  power  of  the  res- 
urrection without  denying  the  resurrection  itself, 
without  denying  the  very  Christ  of  history  ?  They 
exist  together  like  vine  and  branches  ;  they  are  part 
and  parcel  of  an  organic  spiritual  whole ;  why  ac- 
cept Him  as  a  teacher  come  from  God,  if  we  refuse  to 
accept  his  own  sublimest  sayings  ? 

In  cherishing  this  sense  of  personal  communion 
with  a  living  person  we  are  dealing  with  an  ideal, 
if  by  ideal  we  mean  something  which  our  gross  nat- 
ural senses  cannot  recognize ;  but  are  we  on  that 
account  dealing  with  something  that  does  not  exert 
over  us  a  felt  power  ?  What,  after  all,  in  life  so 
allures  us  and  so  transforms  us  as  the  ideals  that 
we  cherished  ?  And  when  we  remember  that  this 
ideal  is  not  an  ideal  of  the  intellect,  but  an  ideal  of 
the  heart,  who  will  measure  its  mighty  transforming 
power  ?  Thus,  indeed,  it  is  that  we  all,  with  open 
face  beholding  as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord, 
are  changed  into  the  same  image  from  glory  to 
glory.     This   transforming  power  exercised  by  the 


THE  POWER  OF  CHRIST'S  RESURRECTION.     359 

living  Christ  over  such  as  cherish  Him  with  faith 
and  love  is  indeed  the  transcendent  grace  of  Chris- 
tianity. This  ideal  of  the  risen  Saviour,  if  you 
choose  to  designate  it  by  such  phrase,  how  it  has 
wrought  itself  into  human  life  !  I  have  in  mind  not 
the  supreme  intellects  who  have  confessed  it,  and 
whose  spiritual  experiences  have  become  illustrious 
landmarks  in  the  history  of  the  race,  but  rather  the 
innumerable  multitude  of  the  poor,  the  lowly,  the  un- 
educated, whose  lives  of  toil,  of  privation,  of  suffer- 
ing have  been  transfigured  by  this  gracious  presence. 
By  how  many  bedsides  of  the  neglected  and  forgot- 
ten has  this  image  of  the  Son  of  Man  been  revealed  ? 
In  how  many  abodes,  but  scantily  furnished  with 
this  world's  goods,  has  He  been  a  familiar,  though 
unseen,  visitant  ?  In  how  many  souls  shut  out  from 
opportunities  of  learning  human  lore  has  this  be- 
nignant culture  been  diffused  ?  Along  how  many 
a  dusty  pathway  of  modern  life  men  have  felt  their 
hearts  burn  within  them  as  they  have  talked  together 
of  these  things  ?  "Because  thou  hast  seen  me  thou 
hast  believed,"  said  our  Lord  to  Thomas  ;  "blessed 
are  they  that  have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed  ; " 
yea,  blessed  are  they  who  have  so  realized  the  power 
of  the  resurrection  that  in  their  pilgrimage  of  life 
they  have  been  solaced  with  this  divine  society  whose 
habitual  conversation  is  thus  with  the  heavenly  pow- 
ers.    What  is  life  without  this  belief  ? 


THE    HOLY    SPIRIT  — THE    GUIDE 
TO    TRUTH.1 


Howbeit,  when  he,  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come,  he  will  guide  you 
into  all  truth.  — John  xvi.  13. 

"  To  this  end,"  said  Jesus,  "  was  I  born,  and  for 
this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear 
witness  unto  the  truth,"  and  never  has  man  ap- 
proached nearer  to  that  ideal  perfectness  revealed 
in  the  Son  of  Man,  than  when  seeking  after  truth. 
The  lovers  of  truth  have  led  the  hopes  of  the  world  ; 
the  getters  of  it  have  compassed  the  chief  good  of 
life.  The  fading  years  leave  them  girded  with  a 
glory  and  a  majesty  beside  which  the  pomp  of  kings 
seems  poor.  As  we  look  back  over  the  past,  the 
names  that  the  world  cherishes  with  greatest  rev- 
erence are  the  names  not  of  heroes  and  rulers,  but 
the  names  of  patient  seekers  after  truth. 

It  is  after  all  the  only  real  legacy  with  which  one 
age  can  endow  the  next.  All  else  perishes,  and 
"  leaves  not  a  rack  behind."  All  material  things 
have  in  them  the  seed  of  their  own  decay.  The 
structures  that  human  pride  and  power  erect  all 
fall  to  pieces.  Mournful  lessons  are  recited  to  us, 
as  we  linger  amid  ruins   that  were  meant  as  mon- 

1  Written  in  1862. 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH     361 

uments  of  human  glory,  but  which  serve  only  as 
monuments  of  human  nothingness. 

Only  truth  endures  ;  and  the  fervent  worshipper 
who  has  but  partially  raised  the  veil,  comes  at  last 
to  be  revered  as  the  world's  best  benefactor.  There 
is  no  vocation  that  deserves  to  be  weighed  with  this. 
That  human  soul  in  which  is  implanted  the  convic- 
tion that  for  this  end  it,  too,  was  born,  and  for  this 
cause  it  came  into  the  world,  can  smile  with  pity  at 
the  prizes  which  vulgar  ambition  covets.  He  has 
riches  which  the  merchandise  of  gold  and  silver 
cannot  equal.  Such  a  soul  remains,  however,  an  in- 
explicable phenomenon  to  two  large  classes.  They 
stand  at  opposite  extremes,  and  seem  diametrically 
opposed,  yet  in  fact  are  much  alike.  First  are  those 
whose  conception  of  what  is  true  never  goes  be- 
yond the  things  presented  to  the  senses.  They  lack 
the  ideal  element.  They  believe  in  material  exist- 
ences, in  material  goods  ;  they  care  only  for  what 
is  actual  and  tangible,  for  that  which  has  some  pos- 
itive relation  to  present  wants.  This  species  of 
materialism  is  not  always  coarse  and  vulgar  ;  on  the 
contrary  it  is  sometimes  very  subtle  and  refined.  It 
is  shown  not  unfrequently  in  connection  with  the 
highest  scientific  culture  and  most  exquisite  literary 
taste.  But  it  is  everywhere  the  same  breath  of  a 
positive  philosophy.  It  always  asserts  itself  with 
the  same  denial  of  what  lies  beyond  the  actual.  It 
suffers  its  scheme  of  truth  to  be  restricted  to  those 
truths  which  rest  on  the  basis  of  rigid  scientific 
demonstration. 

In  minds,  however,  of  only  ordinary  activity  and 
culture,  and  such  are  the  great  majority,  this  form 
of  indifference  to  truth  is  often  exhibited  in  connec- 


362     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH. 

tion  with  mere  worldliness  and  selfishness.  Men  of 
this  stamp  care  very  little  what  truth  is,  if  they  only 
achieve  success.  All  they  want  is  wealth  or  station, 
and  in  pursuit  of  these  tangible  results  they  brutal- 
ize themselves  without  compunction.  The  specta- 
cle is  so  common  that  it  hardly  exxites  remark,  yet 
when  we  consider  it,  what  is  there  so  pitiable  as 
this  utter  degradation  of  the  soul,  this  complete  in- 
sensibility to  what  is  noblest  and  most  satisfying  in 
life ;  this  blank  denial  of  what  constitutes  a  man  ? 
Did  we  not  have  the  illustration  of  it  furnished 
every  day,  who  could  believe  that  the  soul,  created 
in  God's  own  image,  could  become  so  small  ?  Who 
could  believe  that  the  immortal  instincts,  which  vin- 
dicate for  man  his  headship  over  the  creation,  could 
be  so  effectually  smothered  up  ? 

But  there  is  still  a  second  class,  very  distinct  from 
these,  yet  not  less  indifferent  to  truth.  A  man  may 
be  indifferent  to  truth  for  two  reasons  :  because  he 
does  not  believe  in  truth,  or  because  he  believes 
he  has  the  whole  truth.  In  either  case  he  ceases 
to  inquire  further.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  say  which  of 
these  two  classes  hinders  truth  the  more ;  whether 
it  is  more  effectually  stifled  by  skepticism  or  con- 
ceit ;  whether  its  worst  foe  is  worldliness  or  big- 
otry. It  is  indeed  a  pitiable  spectacle  to  see  men 
sunk  in  selfish  unconcern  ;  to  see  them  wasting 
their  lives  in  pursuit  of  that  which  will  perish  in  the 
using  ;  but  it  is  not  less  pitiable  to  see  those  who 
will  not  on  any  account  allow  their  preconceived 
opinions  to  be  disturbed  ;  who  cherish  their  own 
ignorance  and  narrowness  as  something  sacred  ; 
whose  halting  souls,  instead  of  pressing  ever  toward 
the  mark,  come  to  a  dead  stop,  and  reproach  others 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.  363 

for  passing  by  them.  It  is  a  disheartening  thing 
for  a  preacher  of  that  Gospel,  which  is  not  a  letter 
that  killeth  but  a  spirit  that  giveth  life,  to  have  his 
hearers  listen  with  cold  indifference,  to  have  them 
push  aside  that  priceless  wine  and  oil  for  the  husks 
that  swine  do  eat,  but  it  is  not  any  less  dishearten- 
ing to  have  them  steel  themselves  in  opposition  to 
what  he  says,  simply  because  it  is  something  that 
they  did  not  know  before,  to  have  them  answer,  as 
he  seeks,  like  a  wise  householder,  to  bring  forth  from 
his  treasures  things  new  and  old,  "  I  am  satisfied 
with  what  I  have,  I  do  not  wish  you  to  disturb  it. 
My  opinions  on  those  subjects  are  made  up;  I  will 
hear  nothing  more."  This,  too,  is  a  pitiable  case  for 
any  human  soul.  It  is  more  than  pitiable  ;  the  soul 
that  assumes  this  attitude  puts  itself  in  virtual  alli- 
ance with  the  Gospel's  deadliest  foes.  The  Son  of 
God  was  crucified  simply  for  disturbing  men's  con- 
victions, for  telling  the  Pharisees  that  grace  and 
truth  were  greater  than  mint  and  anise  and  cum- 
min. All  such  as  these  are  lovers  of  themselves 
rather  than  lovers  of  truth.  They  may  be  out- 
wardly respectable,  useful  members  of  society,  even 
of  the  church,  but  they  know  nothing  of  that  im- 
mortal race  which  the  soul  is  called  to  run.  They 
have  no  sympathy  with  those  devout  inquirers  to 
whom  only  is  vouchsafed  the  open  vision.  We  can 
afford,  then,  to  pass  these  by,  as  hiving  no  possible 
connection  with  our  text.  What  do  they  care  for  a 
guide  into  all  truth  ? 

But  there  are  those  (and  I  speak  here  not  of  elect 
and  consecrated  souls,  the  Bernards,  the  Pascals, 
Miltons,  the  heavenly  flowers  of  our  common  man- 
hood, whose  yearnings  have  become  histories,  but 


364     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH. 

of  humbler  spirits)  there  are  those,  I  say,  whose 
love  of  truth  is  sincere  and  earnest ;  who  are  neither 
sunk  in  worldliness,  nor  blinded  with  complacency  ; 
but  who,  realizing  that  they  only  know  in  part,  are 
ready  to  welcome  a  Guide  that  shall  bring  them 
to  the  mark  of  their  high  calling.  Among  these 
have  been  arrayed  some  of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy.  They  are  not  always  among  the  pop- 
ular leaders  of  mankind  ;  the  Great  Captain  himself 
was  not.  They  have  often  been  mistrusted  and 
suspected  by  their  age  ;  they  have  been  in  peril 
often,  not  only  with  the  heathen,  but  far  more  with 
their  own  countrymen.  In  rude  ages  they  have 
been  beaten  and  burned  at  the  stake,  in  more  pol- 
ished times  they  have  been  stabbed  with  the  tongue. 
As  preachers  of  the  Gospel  they  have  not  met  with 
the  great  outward  success  which  follows  the  mere 
flatterers  of  sects,  and  fomenters  of  party  prejudice, 
but  when  in  the  end  of  the  years  the  world  gathers 
up  her  jewels,  these  will  shine  like  the  stars  forever 
and  ever  ! 

It  is  such  as  these  who  alone  feel  the  full  force 
of  the  inevitable  questions  :  "  How  shall  I  know  the 
truth?"  "  By  what  test  shall  I  separate  it  from 
error?  "  "  How  shall  I  be  assured  that  my  search 
is  not  in  vain?"  At  the  first  step  the  inquiring 
soul  is  immersed  in  this  troubled  sea.  The  air  is 
filled  with  the  war  of  opposing  faiths,  and  the  more 
vital  the  interests  at  stake  the  more  bitter  and  ir- 
reconc  lable  sein  the  contradictions.  A  mind  so 
made  that  it  runs  on  without  reflection  in  the  ruts 
into  which  it  once  has  fallen,  receiving  without 
question  the  opinions  that  happen  to  prevail  in  the 
region  where  Providence  has  placed  it,  will  find  no 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     365 

difficulty  here  ;  but  a  mind  large  enough  to  look 
abroad,  keen  enough  to  scan  the  broad  discrepancies 
in  men's  opinions,  cannot  but  yearn  for  some  fixed 
and  abiding  standard,  by  which  unchanging  truth 
may  be  distinguished  from  human  errors. 

What,  then,  shall  that  standard  be  ?  Shall  it  be 
the  human  reason  ?  Some  have  said  so,  and  have 
refused  to  own  any  other  guide.  "  For  what,"  they 
ask,  "  is  the  god-like  gift  imparted,  but  for  this  very 
end?"  "Why  has  the  Creator  endowed  us  with 
these  faculties,  that  raise  us  to  such  superb  preemi- 
nence above  the  brute  creation,  that  lead  us  in  such 
airy  flights  through  all  the  years,  and  beyond  the 
flaming  walls  of  space,  but  to  launch  us  in  this  ad- 
venturous voyage  ?  "  "  Is  it  not  by  the  exercise  of 
reason,"  it  is  further  asked,  "  that  man  has  taken 
every  step  in  his  onward  march  ?  Is  it  not  by  con- 
fiding in  this  guide  that  he  has  mastered  the  mys- 
teries of  nature,  subjugated  the  obedient  elements, 
made  the  winged  lightning,  even,  his  willing  mes- 
senger ?  Is  it  not  by  reason  that  all  his  knowl- 
edge has  been  built  up  ?  Can  there  be  any  other 
path  to  still  undiscovered  truth  ?  Can  there  be  any 
other  sign  than  this  by  which  we  can  guess  the  un- 
known ? " 

To  a  fair  mind  no  cant  is  more  disgusting  than 
that  which  seeks  to  exalt  religion  by  depreciating 
reason.  A  few  phrases  of  the  Apostle,  misunder- 
stood and  misapplied,  have  been  the  favorite  watch- 
words of  all  such  as  know  not  how  to  prize  one  gift 
of  the  Almighty,  save  by  disparaging  another ;  as 
though  (to  borrow  an  illustration  from  John  Locke) 
in  order  to  use  a  telescope  it  was  first  necessary  to 
put  out  our  eyes.     Let  us  willingly  concede  to  rea- 


366     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH 

son  whatever  is  her  due.  Let  us  confess  her  impe- 
rial and  victorious  sway  over  the  provinces  legiti- 
mately hers.  Let  us  not  believe  that  faith  can  be 
effectually  confirmed  by  making  man  a  fool.  But 
still,  is  there  not  something  more  ?  Does  the  ex- 
perience of  the  past  assure  us  that  unaided  human 
reason  can  settle  beyond  dispute  the  questions  that 
most  harass  and  perplex  the  soul  ?  Has  it  been  the 
unerring  guide  we  want  ?  I  use  the  term  "reason  " 
here  in  its  ordinary  sense,  not  as  the  universal,  but 
as  the  individual  reason  ;  not  the  eternal  law  and 
principle  of  all  things,  the  wisdom  established  from 
everlasting,  but  simply  the  human  faculty,  the  pro- 
cess by  which  the  finite  understanding  advances 
from  premise  to  conclusion.  Does  this  reason,  by 
which  we  investigate  with  such  success  the  laws  of 
nature,  does  this  serve  us  as  well  in  those  higher 
reaches  to  which  the  spirit  soars  ? 

"  But  can  I  know  anything,"  it  may  be  still  ob 
jected,  "  that  I  do  not  arrive  at  in  this  way  ?  Do  I 
not  become  a  sheer  dreamer  or  enthusiast  ?  Am  I 
not  involved  in  infinite  uncertainties  as  soon  as  I 
forsake  this  guide  ? "  The  question,  then,  simply 
reduces  itself  to  this  :  Shall  I  stop  at  this  point, 
beyond  which  my  reason  cannot  securely  tread  ? 
Shall  I  abandon  what  lies  beyond,  and  give  myself 
no  concern  but  for  that  truth  which  can  be  dem- 
onstrated to  the  understanding  ?  But  to  do  this  is 
to  abandon  what  man  wants  most  to  know.  The 
deep,  enduring  thirst  that  the  soul  feels  is  pre- 
cisely for  the  truth  that  lies  beyond  this  bound  ; 
not  for  the  knowledge  of  mere  natural  things,  but 
of  those  deeper  spiritual  mysteries  that  concern  the 
soul's  highest  duty  and  destiny.    To  put  these  things 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE   TO  TRUTH.  367 

aside  as  lying  beyond  the  range  of  legitimate  in- 
quiry is  in  itself  a  virtual  confession  that  unaided 
human  reason  is  not  a  sufficient  guide.  But  besides 
this  there  are  truths  lodged  in  human  consciousness 
that  claim  supernatural  sanction,  —  truths  that  rest 
on  revelation  ;  what  relation  has  reason  to  such 
truth  as  this  ?  Much  of  this  truth  is  not  only  desti- 
tute of  demonstration,  but  seems  in  its  nature  inca- 
pable of  being  demonstrated  to  finite  comprehension. 
How  shall  I  decide  whether  this  is  indeed  the  truth 
of  God  or  the  myth  and  tradition  of  a  bygone  age  ? 
Why,  in  short,  shall  I  receive  the  Bible  and  reject 
the  Vedas  and  the  Koran  ? 

Is  it  strange  that  with  these  questions  multiplying 
so  thick  upon  them,  and  receiving  on  every  side  such 
various  answers,  men  at  last  should  begin  to  ask 
whether  reason  be  indeed  a  sufficient  guide  to  all 
these  mysteries,  —  whether,  by  any  searching,  un- 
aided man  could  find  the  solution  of  these  problems  ? 
Is  it  strange  that  some  have  said  with  Pilate,  "What 
is  truth  ?  "  half  doubting  whether  the  human  mind 
can  ever  rise  above  this  conflict  of  opinion  ? 

One  extreme  runs  directly  to  another.  From  ex- 
alting human  reason  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  stand- 
ard men  next  demand  an  authority  that  shall  con- 
strain the  reason.  The  spectacle  has  come  to  be  too 
common  to  attract  much  notice,  of  those  who  had  as- 
serted the  extremest  use  of  reason  and  exhausted  all 
their  rhetoric  in  praise  of  a  liberal  and  progressive 
Christianity,  deserting  their  old  allies,  to  find  a  rest- 
ing-place beneath  the  wings  of  a  traditional  ecclesi- 
asticism.  I  can  fully  understand  such  men.  I  can 
hardly  find  it  in  my  heart  to  blame  them.  The  nat- 
ural condition  of  the  soul  is  trust.     It  loves  to  con* 


368     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH. 

fide  in  a  power  above  itself.  It  loves  to  feel  that  a 
mightier  arm  encircles  it.  This  state  of  blind  sub- 
mission, even  to  church  authority,  is  a  truer  and 
nobler  state  than  that  reckless  and  defiant  indepen- 
dence that  will  acknowledge  nothing  above  itself,  — 
that  measures  by  its  own  ignorance  eternal  truth. 
Soon  as  experience  shows  that  reason  is  not  suffi- 
cient men  say  we  must  have  some  other  guide. 
The  soul  soon  wearies  of  being  at  the  mercy  of 
every  wind.  It  longs  to  be  at  rest  beneath  the 
protecting  shadow  of  something  about  which  there 
can  be  no  dispute.  It  craves  a  rod  and  a  staff  on 
which  it  may  securely  lean  ;  sick  of  endless  contro- 
versy, despairing  of  any  solid  result,  it  at  last  cries 
out,  "Lead  me  to  a  rock  that  is  higher  than  I  !  ': 
Some  may  be  led  by  selfish  motives  to  identify 
themselves  with  a  church  that  has  with  it  respecta- 
bility and  dignity  and  weight  of  years ;  some,  doubt- 
less, are  attracted  by  mere  outward  trappings,  by 
the  pomp  and  ceremonial  that  ages  have  silvered 
o'er  with  a  solemn  grandeur ;  some,  even  by  the  small 
social  pride  of  seeming  to  be  select  and  different 
from  the  mass ;  but  I  can  well  understand  how  sin- 
cere and  earnest  minds  should  be  driven  by  their 
own  inward  struggles  to  this  result,  and  I  doubt  not 
that  among  those  who  have  thus  willingly  renounced 
the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  confided  them- 
selves and  their  dearest  hopes  to  the  keeping  of  an 
infallible  church,  have  been  some  of  the  truest  and 
purest  spirits  of  our  time.  How  often  the  soul  of 
an  honest  and  an  earnest  man,  seeking  on  the  one 
hand  to  be  true  to  himself  while  on  the  other  he 
seeks  the  supreme  and  perfect  truth,  is  forced  to 
murmur,  "  Oh  that  I  had  wings  like  a  dove,  that  I 
might  fly  away  and  be  at  rest  ! " 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     369 

Complacent  Protestants  sneer  at  the  Church  of 
Rome ;  they  marvel  why  she  holds  her  sway  over 
the  souls  of  men.  But  the  Church  of  Rome  em- 
bodies the  deepest  yearnings  and  instincts  of  human 
nature.  She  stands  up  in  grand  parallel  with  ten- 
dencies that  are  universal  as  man  himself.  What 
may  seem  her  most  arrogant  and  abhorrent  claims 
are  precisely  what  is  yielded  with  most  grateful  sat- 
isfaction. She  meets  those  wants  that  every  per- 
plexed thinker  at  times  must  feel.  The  Church  of 
Rome,  claiming,  as  she  does,  to  rest  on  that  Rock 
against  which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail,  ut- 
tering an  unerring  wisdom,  clothed  with  infallibil- 
ity, going  back  in  the  unbroken  succession  of  her 
bishops  to  apostolic  days,  carrying  the  same  rites 
and  ritual  to  every  nation  under  heaven,  speaking 
in  one  language  to  learned  and  unlearned,  rich  and 
poor,  barbarian,  bond,  and  free, —  meets  and  satis- 
fies these  yearnings  of  the  soul  for  some  authority 
that  shall  forever  still  its  doubts.  How  easy  would 
it  be  to  swell  the  list  of  most  devout,  most  logical, 
most  earnest  thinkers  of  this  century  who  have 
been  driven  to  this  extreme  by  their  profound  ex- 
perience of  the  insufficiency  of  human  reason, — 
who  see  no  order  and  stability  in  society,  no  peace 
and  hope  for  man  save  in  unqualified  submission  to 
church  authority.  It  is  not  a  sign  of  weakness  and 
imbecility,  but  a  mighty  instinct  of  the  soul  that 
leads  it  thus  to  worship  and  obey. 

"  But,"  it  is  said,  on  the  other  hand,  "  in  this  very 
surrender  of  private  judgment,  must  I  not  exercise 
my  judgment?  I  want  nothing  more  than  that  ab- 
solute authority  ;  but  how  shall  I  know  that  I  have 

found  it  ?      Some  tell  me  the  Scriptures   are  suffi- 
24 


370     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH 

cient ;  but  when  the  meaning  of  Scripture  is  in 
doubt,  how  shall  I  be  assured  of  an  infallible  inter- 
pretation ?  If  the  church  interpret,  where  shall  I 
find  the  church  ?  Shall  I  find  it  in  Rome  or  in  Ge- 
neva or  in  Oxford  ?  Shall  I  follow  the  successor  of 
St.  Peter  or  the  mouth-piece  of  some  petty  sect  ?  " 

So,  then,  we  round  the  circle.  The  unaided  rea- 
son is  not  a  sufficient  guide  ;  experience  shows  that, 
trusting  to  this  alone,  we  are  hopelessly  adrift  on  a 
sea  of  errors  ;  so  long  as  each  individual  makes  his 
own  opinion  the  single  standard  there  can  be  no 
judgment  absolute  and  final.  Neither  is  outward 
authority  a  sufficient  rule  ;  for  in  the  very  act  of 
deferring  to  such  authority  we  are  forced  to  exercise 
that  individual  reason  which  we  abjure.  What,  then, 
is  man's  position  ?  How  shall  he  ever  draw  the  line 
between  the  true  and  false  ?  How  shall  he  ever 
reach  an  assured  conviction  respecting  these  great 
questions  on  which  his  peace  depends  ?  How  shall 
he  ever  pass  from  darkness,  uncertainty,  and  igno- 
rance to  serene  and  cloudless  day?  If  he  cannot 
follow  the  light  of  his  own  understanding,  —  if  he 
cannot  follow  the  light  of  tradition  and  authority,  — 
what  else  shall  serve  him  as  a  light  to  his  feet  and 
as  a  lamp  to  his  path  ? 

Or  is  he  meant  to  live  in  endless  doubt  ?  This 
latter  supposition  may  be  dismissed  as  inconceiva- 
ble. We  cannot  for  one  moment  be  persuaded  that 
He  who  dwelleth  in  perfect  light,  and  in  whom  is 
no  darkness  at  all,  should  have  doomed  the  human 
soul  to  this  dreary  destiny ;  that  He,  who  at  so  many 
times  and  in  such  divers  manners,  in  the  utterances 
of  day  and  night,  in  the  teaching  of  the  written 
word,  has  declared  his  truth,  should  have  destined 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     371 

his  creatures  to  remain  always  ignorant  of  it.  And 
much  as  we  may  dispute  respecting  Scripture  teach- 
ing there  can  be  no  dispute  respecting  this,  that  the 
Scriptures  not  only  represent  the  soul  as  created  to 
know  the  truth,  but  represent  this  knowledge  as  its 
only  enduring  peace  and  satisfaction  ;  we  cannot, 
then,  believe  that  doubt  and  darkness  are  meant 
always  to  fold  their  cheerless  wings  about  it,  that  it 
has  been  left  wholly  without  a  guide.  But  where 
shall  that  guide  be  found  ?  If  I  read  aright  the  last 
words  of  promise  uttered  by  our  Lord  to  his  sor- 
rowing disciples,  the  soul  has  that  guide,  —  a  guide 
implanted  in  it  for  this  very  purpose,  a  guide  that 
cannot  err,  a  guide  that  rises  supreme  over  human 
ignorance  and  human  prejudice,  a  guide  that  is  in- 
dependent of  traditional  authority,  that  shall  guide 
the  willing  and  trusting  soul  into  the  perfect  truth. 

So  I  read  the  great  promise  of  the  text.  If  lan- 
guage has  any  meaning  these  words  must  mean  that 
the  soul,  yearning  to  be  set  free  from  doubt  and  error, 
is  not  left  without  a  comforter  ;  they  must  mean  that 
He  who  created  man  to  know  the  truth  has  pro- 
vided a  new  and  better  way  by  which  he  may  follow 
after  it,  —  that  in  the  light  of  this  latter  day  that  has 
dawned  upon  the  soul,  it  is  meant  that  the  gloomy 
shapes  that  have  so  long  beleaguered  it  shall  be 
made  forever  to  flee  away.  "  Howbeit,  when  he, 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,"  said  Jesus,  "  he  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth."  Can  language  be  more 
explicit  ?  Can  we  conceive  an  answer  more  direct 
and  satisfying  to  those  questions  that  have  so  per- 
plexed us  ?  Is  there  not  here  a  divine  provision  in- 
dicated for  these  very  wants  and  yearnings  of  the 
soul  ?     Tossed  on  the  restless  sea  of  doubt,  closed 


372     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT   THE  GUIDE   TO  TRUTH. 

about  with  the  night  of  darkness,  sinking,  it  may  be, 
in  deep  waters,  is  not  this  the  outstretched  hand  ? 

Of  course  it  was  not  our  Saviour's  meaning  that 
his  followers  should  be  made  omniscient ;  the  trans- 
lation here  is  liable  to  leave  a  wrong  impression. 
Instead  of  reading,  "  He  will  guide  you  into  all 
truth,"  we  might  better  read,  "  He  will  guide  you 
into  the  whole  truth  ; "  that  is,  not  all  truth  of  what- 
ever sort,  but  that  truth  involved  in  the  mission  of 
the  Redeemer,  and  in  our  relation  to  Him  ;  for  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  not  given  to  guide  us  to  that  knowl- 
edge which  mere  natural  reason  comprises,  but  He  is 
to  take  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  show  them  unto 
us.  The  best  comment  on  this  mystery  of  the  new 
creation  is  furnished  in  the  apostolic  writings.  They 
teach,  with  unanimous  consent,  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
dwells  in  regenerate  souls  ;  that  by  this  indwelling 
the  individual  spirit  becomes  identified  with  the 
universal  spirit  ;  that  the  finite  reason  is  merged 
and  blended  with  the  infinite  ;  that  not  by  limiting, 
but  by  enlarging  human  freedom  the  child  of  God 
is  made  to  think  and  know  and  feel  in  accord  with 
his  divine  Original.  Words  need  not  be  multiplied 
in  proof  of  this.  It  would  only  be  to  reiterate  the 
whole  scope  and  tenor  of  the  Epistles.  He  surely 
misses  what  is  most  significant  in  the  new  dispen- 
sation who  does  not  recognize  this  all-pervading 
principle.  The  whole  consciousness  of  apostolic 
teaching  rested  on  this  assurance  that  a  Spirit  dwelt 
within  the  soul  which  guided  it  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  truth.  Nor  did  the  Apostles  restrict  this  inward 
guidance  to  themselves  ;  they  imparted  it  to  all  be- 
lievers. In  the  splendid  figure  of  the  Apostle  the 
body  of  the  believer  was  represented  as  the  temple 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     373 

of  the  Holy  Ghost.  As  in  the  temple  round  which 
have  hovered  such  sacred  recollections,  the  Sheki- 
nah  had  abode,  attesting  with  visible  splendor  the 
actual  presence  of  Jehovah,  so  in  these  living  tem- 
ples abode  that  eternal  Spirit  which  was  the  Light  of 
men,  shedding  its  resplendent  glory,  not  over  out- 
ward gifts  and  sacrifices,  but  over  the  better  offer- 
ings of  a  penitent  and  believing  heart.  This  was 
the  true  Light  that  should  light  every  man.  The 
Spirit  which  convinced  the  soul  of  sin  and  right- 
eousness and  judgment  did  not  then  forsake  it,  to 
grope  its  way  alone.  The  same  power  which  turned 
from  darkness  unto  light  led  to  the  perfect  day. 
Once  wedded  to  his  living  Head,  the  believer  could 
never  again  be  left  alone.  The  Good  Shepherd  did 
not  desert  his  sheep.  Leaving  them,  He  left  be- 
hind another  Witness,  that  should  witness  to  the 
human  soul  the  unchanging  truth  of  God. 

Does  the  question  still  arise,  Shall  we  recognize 
this  inward  Witness  ?  How  shall  we  guard  ourselves 
from  error  here  better  than  before  ?  How  shall  we 
separate  this  spiritual  guidance  from  our  own  na- 
tive promptings  ?  Are  we  not  here  involved  in  new 
and  greater  difficulties  ? 

The  answer  given  by  Scripture  to  these  questions 
is  explicit.  It  is  not  meant  that  we  should  be  left 
in  any  doubt  respecting  this.  To  have  been  left  so 
would  have  defeated  every  purpose  for  which  the 
guide  was  given.  The  sufficing  evidence  of  the  in- 
ward presence  of  this  guide  is  the  conviction  that 
itself  awakens.  This  conviction  may  be  as  strong 
as  the  conviction  of  personal  identity.  Paul  never 
doubted  this  inward  guidance  ;  he  could  no  more 
doubt  it  than  doubt  his  own  existence.     The  meas- 


374     THE  H0L  Y  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH. 

ure  of  the  gift  will  always  be  the  measure  of  the 
conviction  of  it.  The  soul  can  be  as  much  assured 
of  the  shining  of  this  inner  light  as  it  can  be  assured 
by  the  outward  eye  that  the  day  breaks  and  the  shad- 
ows flee  away.  It  is  striking  to  observe  how  those 
who  stand  farthest  removed  from  resting  religion 
upon  individual  conviction,  who  assert  most  strongly 
the  authority  of  external  standards,  yet  in  their 
deeper  moods  fall  back  instinctively  on  this  inner 
guide.  We  know  in  our  language  no  more  emphatic 
utterance  of  this  trust  than  those  touching  lines  of 
Newman,  dear  to  all  tried  and  doubting  souls  :  — 

"  Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  th'  encircling  gloom, 
Lead  Thou  me  on  ; 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home, 
Lead  Thou  me  on." 

The  sense  of  this  divine  guidance  made  the  first 
preachers  of  the  Gospel  preach  it  with  such  unfal- 
tering lips.  This  inward  assurance  was  their  sole 
authority.  Not  of  man,  nor  by  man,  but  by  the 
Holy  Ghost;  not  by  power  of  human  reason,  not 
by  ecclesiastical  traditions,  but  by  the  living  Spirit. 
Can  we  conceive  of  any  conviction  that  could  be 
stronger  than  was  theirs,  that  any  guidance  could 
be  more  distinctly  felt  than  that  which  guided  them  ? 

And  was  there  any  limit  to  the  promise  ?  Was 
it  only  to  the  Apostles  or  to  the  apostolic  age  that 
this  guide  was  given  ?  Does  man  now  need  it  any 
less  ;  can  it  not  now  as  well  as  then  make  its  abode 
within  him  ?  Do  we  doubt  that  if  we  to-day  desire 
the  truth  with  the  simple,  fervent  yearning  with 
which  they  desired  it,  if  we  receive  it  with  the  same 
humble,  child-like  trust  with  which  they  received  it, 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  will  dwell  in  us  less  richly  than 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     375 

it  dwelt  in  them  ?  Here,  then,  we  have  the  solution, 
and  the  only  possible  solution,  of  the  great  conflict 
between  authority  and  reason.  Reason  is  not  in  the 
least  abjured.  Rather  is  reason  here  first  raised 
to  its  rightful  sphere.  Reason  is  purged  and  clari- 
fied ;  the  individual  reason  becomes  the  universal  ; 
the  indwelling  light  illumines  all  its  functions.  It 
is  made  a  trusty,  unerring  guide,  because  it  acts 
no  longer  by  its  mere  blinded  instincts,  but  is  made 
partaker  of  all  the  fullness  of  God. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  authority  in  the  least 
impugned.  On  the  contrary,  here  is  established  an 
authority  absolutely  binding ;  here  is  revealed  a 
guide  to  be  followed  at  all  hazards  ;  here  is  set  up  a 
standard  infallible,  imperial,  unchanging.  Never 
may  the  soul  renounce  these  claims,  never  may  it 
utter  a  protest  against  this  rule.  This  is  the  very 
voice  of  God  that  speaks  within  it.  The  wisdom 
that  was  set  up  from  everlasting,  before  ever  the 
world  was  made  perpetually  enriches  it  with  all 
counsel  and  all  knowledge. 

The  operation  of  this  inward  guide  saves  the  soul 
from  false  extremes.  It  teaches  man  first  of  all  to 
look  within,  to  follow  the  inner  light,  to  hearken  to 
the  inner  voice,  to  be  loyal  to  his  own  conviction  of 
truth  and  duty  ;  but  it  teaches  him  not  less  to  re- 
spect the  convictions  of  all  good  men,  to  remember 
always  that  they  too  are  guided  by  the  same  unerr- 
ing guide,  to  act  not  apart  from  them,  but  in  the 
unity  of  one  spirit  to  acknowledge  one  Lord,  one 
faith,  one  baptism.  In  this  sense  the  church  is 
infallible.  The  Spirit  is  continually  guiding  it.  So 
far  as  good  men  are  illumined  by  this  indwelling 
light    they   cannot  err.     That   truth,    therefore,   in 


2^6     THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,  THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH. 

which  all  good  men  agree,  which  is  attested  by  the 
common  experience  and  faith  and  hope  of  all,  is 
invested  with  divine  authority.  The  voice  of  this 
unanimous  conviction  is  not  the  voice  of  man.  It 
is  the  Holy  Ghost  that  speaks  to  us  in  this  as  clearly, 
as  unmistakably,  as  it  spake  of  yore  by  the  voice  of 
prophets  and  apostles.  We  shrink  now  from  ac- 
cepting the  lesson  of  our  text  in  all  its  fullness.  We 
cannot  receive  the  promises  of  Christ  in  their  sim- 
ple, natural  meaning.  Instead  of  trusting  with  per- 
fect faith  to  the  guidance  of  this  inward  light,  we 
fall  back  on  outward  supports  and  hug  the  traditions 
of  men.  So  around  us  rages  the  unappeased  strife 
of  authority  and  reason.  But  when  I  see  on  every 
side  the  upheavals  of  opinion,  when  I  see  how  un- 
settled everywhere  are  men's  convictions,  how  pow- 
erless in  defense  of  truth  seem  human  arguments, 
how  slow  and  impeded  is  the  growth  of  that  king- 
dom which  is  destined  to  cover  the  whole  earth,  I 
can  almost  believe  that  the  present  must  make  way 
for  another  and  greater  dispensation  ;  that  the  King 
of  Glory  must  return  in  sublimer,  more  triumphant 
exhibitions  of  spiritual  power  ;  that  the  failure  of 
all  present  means  is  only  meant  to  pave  the  way 
for  a  presence  of  the  Spirit,  before  which  the  very 
mountains  and  hills  shall  break  forth  into  sin^ine:. 

And,  lastly,  we  may  learn  from  this  study  the  tem- 
per with  which  alone  we  can  seek  the  truth  aright. 
The  condition  of  success  is  not  intellectual,  but 
moral.  What  we  want  is  not  great  mental  keenness, 
nor  learning,  nor  logical  skill,  but  an  humble,  pa- 
tient, docile  spirit.  We  do  not  ourselves  discover 
the  whole  truth  ;  we  are  guided  into  it.  The  more 
we  can  put  ourselves  in  sympathy  with  that  spiritual 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT,   THE  GUIDE  TO  TRUTH.     377 

guide,  the  more  we  can  throw  aside  the  pride  of 
opinion,  the  love  of  sect  or  of  self,  that  holds  us  back 
from  entire  surrender  to  it,  and  yield  ourselves  with 
simple,  child-like  trust  to  the  divine  influence  that 
is  acting  on  our  hearts,  the  sooner  shall  we  come  to 
a  perfect  knowledge.  "  Learn  of  me,"  said  the 
great  Teacher,"  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart." 
Learning  this  first  and  greatest  lesson,  the  humblest 
soul  may  say  at  last,  "  I  thank  Thee,  O  Father, 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  Thou  hast  hid 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  re- 
vealed them  unto  babes." 


THE   BAPTISM    OF    THE    HOLY 
GHOST.1 


For  John  truly  baptized  with  water ;    but  ye  shall  be  baptized 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many  days  hence.  —  Acts  i.  5. 

These  were  the  last  words  of  promise  spoken  by 
our  Lord  to  his  disciples  just  before  the  clouds 
veiled  his  ascending  form  forever  from  their  sight. 
They  gave  the  final  sanction  to  a  long  series  of 
prophetic  intimations  that  his  work  would  receive 
its  completion  in  a  new  outpouring  of  the  divine 
Spirit  upon  men.  In  his  discourse  on  the  night  be- 
fore He  was  betrayed  He  had  distinctly  taught 
them  that  the  great  work  which  He  had  assumed 
would  not  be  completed  by  his  death.  That  was  not 
the  last  result  towards  which  all  things  had  tended, 
but  was  itself  the  transition  step  to  a  greater  result, 
the  necessary  condition  of  another  and  more  glo- 
rious stage  of  spiritual  development,  the  door  of  a 
nearer  approach  to  the  invisible  world.  The  sadness 
of  his  farewell  address  was  relieved  by  the  assur- 
ance that  it  was  expedient  that  He  should  go  away. 
After  He  had  gone,  a  Comforter  would  come  who 
would  abide  with  them  forever.  This  Comforter 
was  the  Holy  Ghost. 

1  Written  in  1878. 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.        379 

All  distinctive  Christian  teaching  centres  in  the 
three  cardinal  conceptions  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  essential  and  insepara- 
ble relation  of  these  three  conceptions  was  affirmed 
in  the  great  command  of  Christ  when  He  bade  his 
disciples  go  forth  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  into  this  single  and  indivisible  name.  With 
each  application  of  the  symbolic  water,  which  signi- 
fied the  translation  of  a  believer  from  the  kingdom 
of  darkness  into  the  kingdom  of  light,  was  solemnly 
reiterated  the  mysterious  formula  which  drew  the 
line  between  the  gospel  and  all  other  forms  of  re- 
ligion. Of  the  three  correlated  truths  expressed 
in  this  formula,  that  relating  to  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  not  only  the  last  in  order,  but  the  last  revealed. 
Some  faith  in  a  divine  influence  exerted  on  the 
soul  had  been,  it  is  true,  a  part  of  every  religion, 
and  the  comforting  doctrine  that  the  eternal  spirit 
at  times  conversed  with  man,  and  that  in  rapt  mo- 
ments of  ecstatic  vision  the  soul  pierced  the  veil 
that  rounds  off  our  little  lives  and  was  lifted  to  com- 
panionship with  the  invisible  powers,  played  a  large 
part  in  that  elder  dispensation  of  which  Christianity 
was  in  some  important  respects  the  outgrowth.  In 
this  sense  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  no 
new  revelation.  But  where  the  teachings  of  Christ 
respecting  the  Comforter  who  was  to  come,  departed 
from  earlier  conceptions,  was  in  the  distinct  repre- 
sentation that  He  made  of  the  new  mode  in  which 
this  spiritual  power  would  work.  It  was  not  a  new 
spirit  that  was  to  be  poured  out  upon  them,  but  it 
would  be  poured  out  in  a  new  way.  Through  the 
kings  and  prophets  of  the  old  dispensation  its  work- 
ing had  been  sporadic  and  exceptional.     It  had  come 


380         THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

to  them  at  intervals.  Its  visitations  had  been  rare 
and  eminent  exhibitions  of  supernatural  power.  Only 
a  favored  few  had  been  selected  as  its  ministering 
agents.  But  in  the  new  spiritual  realm  about  to  be 
established  all  this  would  be  changed.  The  baptism 
of  the  Spirit  would  no  longer  be  restricted  to  a  se- 
lect class.  All  who  truly  believed  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  would  be  counted  worthy  to  receive  it.  Its 
consecration  set  apart  no  exclusive  hierarchy,  but 
each  redeemed  soul  in  the  inherent  nobility  and 
greatness  of  a  spiritual  priesthood  would  shine  with 
its  mystic  chrism.  It  would  abide  in  the  church  as 
the  normal  and  permanent  law  of  its  growth.  It 
formed  the  definite  ground-work  and  constitution  of 
that  new  kingdom  which  was  not  meat  and  drink, 
but  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

The  earlier  teachings  of  our  Lord  did  not  touch 
distinctly  on  this  final,  consummate  truth.  At  the 
very  beginning  of  his  ministry  He  contented  him- 
self with  the  command  that  men  should  follow  Him. 
For  only  by  willing  surrender  of  all  that  they  had, 
by  full  renunciation  of  all  selfish  plans  of  personal 
indulgence  or  ambition,  and  by  a  daily  companion- 
ship, by  seeing  his  works,  by  testing  the  truth  of  his 
words,  could  they  enter  on  the  great  path  of  a 
genuine  discipleship.  Thus  were  they  prepared 
for  clearer  teachings  ;  for  the  parables  in  which  the 
mystery  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  set  forth 
to  the  disciples,  but  not  to  the  world.  But  not 
even  then  were  they  ready  for  the  whole  truth. 
Not  till  the  solemn  crisis  of  his  career,  not  till  the 
dark  night  when  they  were  gathered  about  Him 
in  the  upper  chamber,  when  at  the  very  table  was 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE   HOLY  GHOST.        38 1 

seated  the  one  who  so  soon  should  betray  Him,  did 
Jesus  disclose  the  deeper  mystery  of  the  soul's  re- 
lation to  the  spiritual  world.  Not  till  then,  in  the 
pathetic  chapters  the  whole  meaning  of  which  seems 
still  to  elude  our  most  earnest  study,  did  He  ven- 
ture to  depict  the  grand  outlines  of  that  eternal 
kingdom  of  spiritual  light  and  life  and  peace  which 
no  malice  of  man  nor  violence  of  earthly  foes  could 
ever  invade  or  destroy. 

And  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  the 
last  which  our  Lord  revealed,  so  it  has  been  the 
hardest  for  his  disciples  to  comprehend.  The  truths 
of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son,  however  illimitable 
the  lines  of  speculation  which  they  opened,  in  their 
general  outline  appealed  more  directly  to  human 
comprehension.  That  God  was  our  Father  ;  that 
He  cared  for  us  with  even  more  than  the  love  with 
which  a  human  father  cares  for  his  child  ;  that  He 
was  even  more  ready  to  give  good  gifts  to  them 
that  asked  them  ;  that  his  ear  was  never  deaf  to 
our  petitions,  was  a  conception  that  even  the  young- 
est could  comprehend.  That  the  only-begotten  Son 
was  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ;  that  his  lowly  walk 
among  the  neglected  and  despised  of  earth  was  a 
manifestation  of  more  than  human  love  ;  that  his 
whole  self-denying  life  was  a  sacrifice  for  us  ;  that 
his  death  on  the  cross  was  a  perfect  example  of  sub- 
mission to  the  divine  will,  were  truths  appealing  for 
evidence  to  undoubted  historic  facts,  —  to  facts  tell- 
ing the  story  of  redemption  in  language  more  intel- 
ligible than  Hebrew,  or  Latin,  or  Greek.  But  the 
doctrine  of  the  Spirit  was  one  that  in  its  nature 
could  only  be  spiritually  discerned.  It  could  not 
be  conveyed  by  any  of  the  ordinary  methods  of  in- 


382  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

struction,  but  must  be  understood  and  felt  by  an  in- 
ward and  personal  experience. 

Hence,  that  part  of  Christian  doctrine  which  re- 
lates to  the  Father  and  the  Son  has  always  supplied 
the  principal  topics  of  theological  discussion.  Re- 
specting the  nature  and  attributes  of  God  whole 
libraries  have  been  written.  The  proofs  of  the  divine 
existence  have  been  examined  and  reexamined,  till 
in  the  din  of  conflicting  views  the  most  sober  think- 
ers have  begun  to  doubt  whether  the  human  mind 
is  capable  of  framing  any  logical  demonstration 
that  this  mighty  frame  of  things  had  any  origin  in 
creative  mind.  In  the  same  way,  what  theologians 
have  called  the  plan  of  redemption  has  been  dis- 
sected with  all  the  confidence  with  which  science 
investigates  the  phenomena  of  matter.  The  most 
signal,  pathetic,  persuasive  exhibition  of  yearning 
love  for  men  ever  compassed  within  the  limits  of  a 
human  life  has  been  analyzed  into  dry,  repulsive 
syllogisms,  and  summed  up  in  the  metaphysical  dia- 
lect of  creeds,  and  made  the  shibboleths  of  contend- 
ing sects.  For  even  the  story  of  redemption  could 
be  easily  perverted  into  an  abstract  theory  of  the 
divine  administration.  But  when  we  studv  the  doc- 
trine  of  the  Spirit  we  pass  from  the  theology  of  the 
intellect  to  the  theology  of  the  feelings.  The  ways 
of  the  Spirit  lend  themselves  less  readily  to  the 
formulas  of  logic.  We  are  in  a  region  of  insight, 
of  experience,  of  inner  recognition,  where  intellectual 
conclusions  no  longer  satisfy. 

We  can  never  grasp  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  if  we  simply  or  mainly  regard  it  as  a 
dogma  of  theology.  We  only  deceive  ourselves  if 
we  seek  to  define  it  to  the  understanding ;  we  can 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.        383 

never  search  out  the  Spirit  by  vain  attempts  to 
trace  back  its  timeless  beginning ;  we  only  perplex 
faith  by  raising  questions  about  the  relations  in  the 
Godhead,  and  by  vain  disputes  respecting  persons 
and  processions.  The  last  discourse  of  our  Lord, 
so  pervaded  in  every  sentence  with  this  comforting 
truth,  says  nothing  of  these  things.  The  work  of 
the  Spirit  is  practical  ;  its  operation  is  within  the 
limits  of  human  experience.  The  question  for  us 
is  not  its  eternal  relation  to  the  uncreated  source 
of  all  things,  but  its  manifestation  in  our  lives. 
We  are  in  a  region  where  we  need  to  tread  with 
caution,  where  we  are  easily  misled,  where  the 
most  wholesome  and  life-giving  truths  lie  danger- 
ously near  the  most  disastrous  error,  but  yet  a  region 
where  the  soul  breathes  its  native  air,  and  where  it 
finds  its  highest  satisfaction.  We  enter  here  the 
inner  sanctuary  of  Christian  faith  ;  we  tread  the  true 
holy  of  holies,  where  we  see  no  longer  as  in  a  glass, 
but  with  open  face.  Of  all  born  among  the  sons 
of  women  there  was  not  a  greater  than  John  the 
Baptist  ;  yet  John  baptized  only  with  water,  while 
we  are  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost. 

In  calling  attention  to  a  few  of  the  more  obvi- 
ous conclusions  to  be  derived  from  this  supreme 
article  of  revealed  truth,  let  us  observe  :  — 

1.  That  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
rests  throughout  on  the  great  fact  that  there  is  be- 
tween the  human  soul  and  its  Maker  an  inner  con- 
tact and  relationship  which  the  ordinary  laws  of 
intellectual  action  do  not  explain.  It  most  unmis- 
takably means  that  there  are  interior  spiritual  rela- 
tions, capable  of  being  recognized  in  a  personal  ex- 
perience, attesting  themselves  to  the  soul  as  a  part 


384  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

of  its  life,  of  which  the  grosser  external  senses  can 
take  no  note.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than  the 
teachings  of  our  Lord  upon  this  point.  He  com- 
forts his  disciples  with  the  assurance  that  they  shall 
receive  from  the  Father  a  Spirit  whom  the  world 
cannot  receive,  —  a  Spirit  who  shall  dwell  in  them  ; 
who  shall  teach  them  all  things  ;  who  shall  give  the 
inward  testimony  of  the  truth  of  his  sayings  ;  who 
will  show  them  things  to  come.  Such  sayings  can 
have  no  meaning  save  on  the  assumption  of  a  di- 
rect influence  exerted  upon  the  soul  by  the  powers 
of  the  invisible  world.  Any  interpretation  short  of 
this  reduces  to  cruel  mockery  the  most  solemn,  the 
most  pathetic,  the  most  precise,  teachings  of  the  Son 
of  Man. 

Here  we  have,  then,  revealed  on  the  one  hand  the 
capacity  of  the  infinite  Spirit  to  bring  itself  within 
the  limit  of  human  consciousness,  and  on  the  other 
the  capacity  of  the  finite  spirit  to  come  into  imme- 
diate communion  with  its  Maker.  We  have  at  once 
the  highest  truth  that  can  be  grasped  by  human  in- 
telligence and  the  highest  experience  that  can  be 
tasted  by  the  human  soul.  We  have  the  assurance 
that  there  is  no  middle  wall  of  partition  between 
man  and  God  ;  that,  made  in  the  image  of  God, 
man  is  capable  of  directly  recognizing  God,  of  com- 
ing into  conscious  personal  contact  with  Him  whom 
no  man  has  seen  at  any  time.  With  the  psycho- 
logical problems  involved  in  this  proposition  we 
need  not  perplex  ourselves.  The  great  Teacher 
does  not  seek  to  explain  them  ;  it  may  be  that  we" 
are  not  capable  of  understanding  any  explanation 
were  it  made.  We  have  never  yet  solved  the  prob- 
lem how  we  know  anything  at  all  ;  how  the  impres- 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.        385 

sions  of  the  senses  are  made  the  possession  of  the 
soul.  We  can  only  rest  in  the  fact,  —  a  fact  not 
simply  attested  by  the  personal  consciousness  of 
the  individual,  but  finding  its  verification  in  the  In- 
carnation of  our  Lord  ;  for  what  was  that,  consid- 
ered in  its  deeper  meaning,  but  a  publication  of  the 
great  truth  that  the  divine  Spirit  can  dwell  in 
man  ? 

And  bearing  in  mind  that  this  immediate  contact 
of  the  finite  and  infinite  Spirit  is  presented  to  us 
by  our  Lord  as  the  ultimate  and  supreme  result  of 
religious  experience  ;  that  the  long  line  of  supernat- 
ural influences  that  stretched  from  the  call  of  Abra- 
ham, in  the  dawn  of  patriarchal  story,  on  to  the 
Day  of  Pentecost,  was  but  the  ordered  preparation 
for  this  final  access  of  the  soul  to  its  highest  life, 
we  are  brought  directly  to  the  conclusion  that  re- 
ligion in  its  most  perfected  form  is  this  inner  ex- 
perience ;  that  the  soul  wins  its  closest  access  to 
spiritual  things  in  this  sphere  of  feeling  and  inner 
intuition.  In  other  words,  this  is  to  say  that  re- 
ligious belief  in  its  highest  form  has  its  origin  and 
foundation  in  religious  intuition  ;  that  it  lies  back 
of  the  ordinary  intellectual  processes  by  which  the 
understanding  arrives  at  truth  ;  and  that  it  does  not 
appeal  to  the  tests  by  which  the  ordinary  conclu- 
sions of  the  understanding  are  verified.  The  im- 
pulse, the  guidance,  the  illumination,  by  which  the 
soul  is  enabled  to  rest  in  its  supreme  convictions 
of  spiritual  things  are  due  to  a  direct  contact  of  the 
soul  with  something  distinct  from  and  above  itself  ; 
a  power  making  itself  felt  in  recesses  of  our  being 
far  removed  from  the  familiar  commerce  of  life. 

It  has   been    asserted   by  a  famous  writer   that 
25 


386         THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

the  human  mind  passes  through  three  successive 
stages  :  that,  beginning  with  the  conscious  feeling  of 
dependence  upon  a  higher  power  from  which  all  re- 
ligion springs,  it  passes  next  to  a  stage  where  it  is 
held  in  thrall  by  its  metaphysical  conceptions,  emerg- 
ing at  last  into  the  cold,  clear  air,  where  it  accepts 
nothing  that  science  cannot  demonstrate  by  a  rigid 
process  of  induction.  But  this  ignores  man's  high- 
est aptitudes.  The  right  method  of  human  progress 
is  not  to  pass  from  the  sphere  of  feeling  to  the 
sphere  of  mere  intellectual  cognition  ;  but  when  man 
is  at  his  best  estate,  when  he  has  reached  his  am- 
plest growth,  when  he  is  in  the  fullest  exercise  of 
all  his  faculties,  then  it  is  that  he  is  capable  of 
feeling  most  deeply,  and  then  it  is  that  his  feelings, 
that  is  the  affirmations  of  his  moral  nature,  may 
be  most  confidently  relied  upon  as  a  guide  to  truth. 
Here  is  seen  the  profound  meaning  of  the  Saviour's 
maxim  that  whosoever  would  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  must  receive  it  as  a  little  child.  For  child- 
hood is  the  period  when  we  are  most  under  the  sway 
of  feeling  ;  when  the  heart  is  most  capable  of  being 
touched,  attracted,  transformed,  by  whatever  is  higher 
and  better  than  itself.  Then  it  is  we  hear  divine 
voices  most  distinctly. 

Nor  is  it  a  skeptical  philosophy  alone  that  has 
misconceived  this  point.  The  Christian  church  has 
many  times  been  betrayed  into  the  same  error. 
When  saving  faith  has  been  confounded  with  the 
recognition  of  certain  intellectual  formulas,  when 
the  progress  of  truth  has  been  measured  by  mere 
precision  of  dogmatic  statements,  and  the  growth  of 
simple  and  undefiled  religion  has  been  argued  from 
the  success  of  theologians  in    framing   systems    of 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.        387 

divinity,  then  surely  has  the  most  distinctive  feature 
of  the  gospel  been  overlooked,  —  that  in  its  highest 
form  it  is  something  to  be  felt,  and  that  the  things 
hid  from  the  wise  and  the  prudent  are  revealed  to 
babes. 

And  let  us  never  forget  the  inestimable  service 
rendered  in  an  age  of  dry,  dogmatic  controversy  by 
the  religious  body  which  revived,  in  modern  times, 
the  almost  forgotten  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  said  that  the  Society  of  Friends  is  gradually 
passing  away.  They  can  ill  be  spared  from  the 
household  of  faith.  But  should  they  become  extinct 
as  a  sect  it  will  be  only  because  their  mission  is  ac- 
complished. The  great  cardinal  truth  of  the  Chris- 
tian system  to  which  they  called  attention,  which 
kindled  the  enthusiasm  of  Fox  and  moved  the  elo- 
quence of  Barclay,  must  appeal  to  human  souls  with 
increased  power  as  the  years  roll  on,  or  Christianity 
itself  will  become  but  as  sounding  brass  and  tink- 
ling cymbal. 

2.  As  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  sets  before 
us  the  origin  and  foundation  of  all  religious  belief, 
so  at  the  same  time  it  supplies  the  law  of  religious 
growth.     In  its  essence,  religion  is  life. 

In  Scripture  the  two  words  are  constantly  in- 
terchanged as  synonyms.  The  Founder  of  our  re- 
ligion came  on  earth  that  we  might  have  life.  In 
Him  was  life,  and  this  life  was  the  light  of  men. 
And  in  language  even  more  emphatic  we  are  warned 
that  he  that  hath  the  Son  hath  life,  while  he  that 
hath  not  the  Son  of  God  shall  not  see  life.  Faith 
in  Christ,  whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it,  is  first  of 
all  a  living  principle  implanted  in  the  soul.  But  the 
characteristic  of  all  life  is  growth.     It  is  the  law  of 


388  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

the  natural  world,  —  a  law  illustrated  afresh  as  each 
new  season  salutes  us  with  the  green  grass  and  the 
budding  leaf  and  the  song  of  birds  ;  it  is  even  more 
the  law  of  the  spiritual  world,  of  whose  unseen  agen- 
cies and  potencies  external  nature  is  only  the  type 
and  semblance  ;  so  that  when  we  define  religion  as 
consisting  essentially  in  a  devout  temper  of  mind 
we  do  not  exclude,  but  include,  the  possibility  of 
enlargement  and  elevation  and  enrichment.  Be- 
cause religion  lies  so  near  the  centre  of  being  must 
it  be,  in  its  very  nature,  a  most  stimulating  and  po- 
tent principle  of  growth. 

But  what  is  the  law  of  the  soul's  growth  ?  How 
is  the  germ  planted  in  the  inner  life  carried  on 
through  the  successive  stages  of  its  development, 
till  at  last  it  ripens  into  the  full-grown  and  perfect 
man  ?  Is  it  left  to  itself,  —  left  to  its  own  unaided 
strength,  to  the  uncertain  light  of  its  own  experience, 
to  the  feeble  efforts  which  itself  is  capable  of  mak- 
ing in  the  long  race  it  has  to  run  and  in  the  inces- 
sant wrestling  it  must  keep  up  with  foes  without  and 
foes  within,  —  or  is  it  helped  and  quickened  and 
strengthened  by  a  power  above  itself,  and  led  in  the 
illumined  pathway  of  a  divine  guidance  ? 

On  this  point,  too,  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  re- 
specting the  Master's  teachings.  The  sayings  of 
our  Lord  are  clear  and  positive.  The  soul  once 
brought  into  inner  and  immediate  contact  with  a 
divine  power  and  life  is  never  left  to  itself.  It  is 
meant  to  live  on  in  the  joy  and  strength  of  this  un- 
checked communion.  Having  once  found  access  to 
the  holiest  of  all,  it  does  not  go  out  from  this  bliss- 
ful society.  The  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  always 
described  as  an  indwelling  and   perpetual  gift ;   not 


THE   BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.         389 

simply  one  original  impulse,  but  a  ceaselessly  acting 
principle,  a  dwelling  of  the  divine  life  in  the  believ- 
ing and  obedient  soul. 

This  indwelling  Spirit  is  held  up  to  us  as  the 
operative  principle  of  all  genuine  religious  progress. 
And  herein  lies  the  distinction  between  religious 
and  intellectual  growth.  The  advance  we  make  in 
the  discovery  of  mere  natural  truth  is  through  the 
cultivation  and  right  exercise  of  our  mere  natural 
faculties.  We  move  forward  securely  by  making  use 
of  rational  methods.  The  keenness  of  our  intellect- 
ual perceptions,  the  logical  correlation  of  the  con- 
ceptions which  the  understanding  frames,  are  the 
conditions  of  all  successful  searching  into  the  se- 
crets of  the  external  universe.  So  we  measure  the 
courses  of  the  stars,  and  note  the  subtle  affinities 
of  physical  force.  But  when  we  turn  our  inspec- 
tion in  upon  the  secret  springs  of  life  and  action, 
when  we  set  clearly  before  us  our  conscious  self, 
and  ponder  the  mystery  of  our  personal  being,  we 
come  into  a  more  mysterious  and  sacred  presence. 
Amid  the  deep  foundations  of  our  spiritual  nature, 
we  are  forced  to  recognize  the  working  of  forces, 
the  analysis  of  which  eludes  our  ordinary  methods. 
We  are  confronted  with  problems  and  stirred  with 
questionings  which  do  not  yield  to  the  familiar 
methods  which  we  have  applied  with  so  much  suc- 
cess in  a  different  sphere.  The  primary  condition 
of  progress  is  not  so  much  clear  perception  as  a 
right  temper  of  heart. 

The  function  of  the  Spirit  in  guiding  the  soul  of 
man  is  therefore  primarily  made  effectual  in  chang- 
ing the  inner  disposition.  It  is  in  the  sphere  of 
feeling,  as  we  have  already  seen,  that  we  lie  nearest 


390  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

the  centre  of  light  and  truth,  and  it  is  through  the 
moral  disposition  or  temper  that  we  are  directly 
acted  upon  by  the  illuminating  power  whose  office 
it  is  to  guide  us  into  all  truth.  The  first  step  is 
here  ;  and  only  by  effecting  a  change  in  this  inner 
man  can  the  divine  Spirit  bring  us  into  that  right 
relation  to  the  spiritual  world  which  is  the  indispen- 
sable condition  of  all  progress  in  the  knowledge  of 
spiritual  things.  But  man  is  so  made  that  his  inner 
operations  cannot  be  divided.  There  is  an  under- 
lying unity  of  being,  in  which  his  moral  and  his  in- 
tellectual life  are  both  included.  The  heart  and  the 
mind  exert  a  reflex  influence,  and  the  healthfulness 
of  one  makes  itself  directly  felt  upon  the  other  also. 
Hence,  the  attaining  of  a  right  temper  of  heart  car- 
ries with  it  a  clearer  intellectual  perception,  and 
faith  passes  by  an  inherent  and  necessary  law  from 
the  sphere  of  mere  feeling  to  the  sphere  of  rational 
cognition.  The  soul  cannot  be  deeply  stirred  on 
any  subject  without  having  the  intellectual  faculties 
at  once  roused  to  new  activity. 

How  far  the  teachings  of  Christ  authorize  us  to 
regard  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  direct  source  of  intel- 
lectual illumination  I  will  not  undertake  to  say. 
We  know  so  little  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  these 
internal  changes  of  mental  state,  in  which  lies  the 
explanation  of  what  we  call  conceptions  or  ideas,  that 
any  mere  affirmation  or  denial  would  be  little  to  the 
purpose.  While  one  school  of  philosophers  insists 
on  regarding  them  as  the  mere  result  of  physical 
modifications  of  the  brain's  structure,  another  sees 
in  them  unmistakable  tokens  of  a  divine  agency;  but 
the  problem  seems  as  far  from  being  solved  as  in 
the  day  when  the  earliest  thinkers  began  to  study 


THE  BAPTISM  OF   THE   HOLY  GHOST.         39 1 

it.  The  promise  of  our  Lord,  "  Howbeit  when  he, 
the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come,  he  will- guide  you  into 
all  truth,"  seems,  indeed,  at  first  sight  broad  enough 
to  cover  the  most  extreme  hypothesis ;  yet  I  do 
not  understand  these  words  to  mean  all  truth,  of 
whatever  sort,  but  only  that  truth  pertaining  directly 
to  his  own  work  and  teachings.  So,  at  least,  the 
context  would  seem  to  show ;  for  the  Spirit,  He  adds 
directly  after,  shall  take  of  the  things  of  mine,  and 
shall  show  them  unto  you  ;  so  that  the  office  of  the 
Spirit  is  not  to  guide  the  mind  into  truth  which  its 
unaided  faculties  are  competent  to  explore,  but 
simply  into  truth  pertaining  to  the  supersensuous 
and  unseen  world. 

We  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  promised  as  a  guide  in  mere  scientific  re- 
search. The  Creator  has  endowed  us  with  powers 
ample  for  all  purposes  of  intellectual  investigation, 
and  He  has  spread  around  us  and  above  us  the  infin- 
ite solicitations  of  the  external  world,  that  these 
powers  might  be  stimulated  to  highest  development. 
The  astronomer  would  be  mad  indeed  who  should 
throw  aside  his  optic  glass,  and  seek  divine  commu- 
nications respecting  the  position  of  one  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies.  We  have  no  assurance  which  would 
authorize  us  to  expect  that  God  will  do  for  us  what 
He  has  given  us  power  to  do  ourselves.  Nor  have 
we  any  more  reason  to  suppose  that  when  we  apply 
to  divine  truth  our  metaphysical  methods,  when  we 
reduce  the  mysteries  of.  the  spiritual  world  to  the 
plane  of  the  human  understanding,  He  will  give  us 
his  help.  The  office  of  the  Spirit  is,  by  effecting  a 
change  in  the  moral  disposition,  to  bring  the  soul  to 
an  inner,  immediate,   intuitive,  perception  of  divine 


392  THE   BAPTISM  OF   THE   HOLY  GHOST. 

things,  but  it  is  no  part  of  the  Spirit's  work  to  cor- 
rect the  notions  which  the  mere  logical  faculty  has 
fashioned.  The  abstract  definitions  and  statements 
respecting  the  divine  nature  and  the  divine  govern- 
ment, that  form  so  large  a  part  of  the  creeds  and 
confessions  which  have  rent  the  church  asunder,  be- 
long for  the  most  part  to  a  sphere  where  the  Spirit 
does  not  claim  to  operate. 

3.  As  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  supplies  the 
law   of  religious   growth,   it   affords    us    the  surest 
ground  of  confidence   respecting   the  ultimate   tri- 
umph of  divine  truth.     As  the  truth  wins   its   first 
access  into  the  soul  by  a  change  worked  by  the  Spirit 
in  the  inner  disposition  or  feeling  of  man,  so  we  may 
expect  that  it  will  spread  and  prevail  by  modifica- 
tions of  the  moral  temper  of  mankind,  due  just  as 
much  to  the  permanent  operation  of  a  divine  power. 
In  other  words,  the  experience  of  each  individual  is 
but  an  epitome  of  the  experience  of  the  larger  man, 
of  which  we  all  are  members,  moving  by  the  same 
law  to  the  mark  of  its  high  calling.     That  not  only 
individuals,  but  the  race,  are  moving  on  in  a  predes- 
tined path,  according  to  some  law  of  progression,  is 
a  conception  that  has  taken  strong  hold  of  human 
thought.     To  see  on  all  sides  in   the  external  world 
the  signs  of  conformity  to  law,  and  to  see  in  the 
long  history  of  the  human  race  signs  only  of  discord 
and    confusion  ;  to   believe    that    the    well-ordered 
spheres  are  balanced  by  a  directing  hand,  and  to  be- 
lieve that  man  alone  is  left  to  plunge  along  help- 
less, and  unaided  to  the  darkness  that  rounds  off  his 
little  life,  is  a  conclusion  from  which  human  reason 
instinctively  holds    back.     Rather  would  it  accept 
iron  fate  than  rest  in  chaos. 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST        393 

It  has  been  the  bold  aim  of  a  modern  school  of 
thinkers  to  reason  back  from  the  phenomena  of  hu- 
man history  to  the  great  underlying  law  which  reg- 
ulates its  onward  march.  Vico,  Herder,  Comte, 
have  busied  themselves  with  a  problem  which  must 
always  possess  a  singular  fascination  for  all  who 
have  an  ear  for  "  the  still  sad  music  of  humanity," 
but  thus  far,  it  must  be  confessed,  with  results  that 
furnish  slender  hope  of  any  complete  solution.  Hu- 
man history  is  an  ever-unfolding  drama  ;  if  any  reg- 
ular movement  lies  veiled  behind  its  shifting  scenes, 
we  are  ourselves  too  much  a  part  of  it  to  note  it 
with  precision.  Only  the  eye  that  sees  the  end  from 
the  beginning  can  know  the  significance  of  the  suc- 
cessive acts,  and  how  each  part  stands  related  to  the 
finished  whole.  But  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
while  it  in  no  way  undertakes  to  solve  the  whole 
problem  of  human  destiny,  lifts  us  up  into  the  in- 
spiring confidence  of  a  divine  direction  of  the  race. 
Saving  us  alike  from  the  alternations  of  a  blind,  re- 
morseless fate,  and  the  conception  of  a  world  with- 
out God  and  without  hope,  it  supplies  the  ennobling 
thought  of  a  divine  power  working  in  human  souls 
without  infringing  on  human  freedom,  and  of  a  hu- 
man society  moving  onward  in  an  ordered  path  to- 
wards perfection. 

The  Spirit  abiding  in  the  soul  of  the  individual 
believer  is  at  the  same  time  the  indwelling  law  of 
social  growth.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  Christ's 
kingdom  that  its  members  are  not  isolated  atoms, 
each  achieving  his  destiny  solitary  and  alone  ;  but 
each  is  part  of  a  whole,  and  all  are  members  one  of 
another.  The  same  voice  that  said,  "  I  will  pray  the 
Father,  and  He  will  give  you  another  Comforter," 


394  THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

uttered  the  prayer,  "  that  they  all  may  be  one,  as 
Thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us."  The  essential  unity  of  the 
vine  and  the  branches  was  the  fundamental  thought 
pervading  his  last  discourse.  There  is,  indeed,  no 
promise  of  the  Spirit  save  to  those  abiding  in  Christ, 
and  no  assurance  of  any  effectual  guidance  into  the 
truth  but  with  the  condition  that  each  separate 
branch  should  maintain  its  organic  connection  with 
the  vine.  So  that  the  work  of  the  Spirit  is  not  with 
the  individual  simply,  but  with  the  individual  as  part 
of  a  spiritual  society ;  its  mission  being  completed 
not  in  the  salvation  of  single  believers,  but  in  build- 
ing them  up  into  a  compact  body.  Hence  the  re- 
lation of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  human  society  is  not  to 
be  viewed  as  something  incidental  and  subsidiary, 
but  as  involving  the  essential  condition  of  its  per- 
fect manifestation. 

Not  then,  in  the  secret  experiences  of  our  own 
souls,  but  in  the  broader  aspects  and  more  signifi- 
cant changes  of  society,  may  we  note  the  operative 
presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Not  only  each  individ- 
ual, but  the  whole  household  of  faith,  is  acted  upon 
and  guided  and  led  forward  to  its  final  goal  by  this 
divine  working.  And  when,  in  the  great  conflict  of 
truth  and  error,  we  become  at  times  perplexed  and 
discouraged ;  when  we  sadly  realize  the  inefficacy  of 
what  we  can  do,  and  feel  ourselves  powerless  before 
the  swelling  surge  of  human  misery  and  wrong,  then 
let  us  take  comfort  in  the  thought  that  agencies  of 
which  we  can  make  no  account  are  working  with 
us,  and  that  avenues  of  influence  which  we  cannot 
enter,  and  which  we  do  not  even  note,  all  lie  wide 
open  to  that  resistless  Spirit,  which,  like  the  wind, 


THE  BAPTISM  OF   THE  HOLY  GHOST         395 

bloweth  where  it  listeth,  so  that  we  cannot  tell 
whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth.  Least  of  all 
are  periods  of  mere  intellectual  doubt  or  unbelief  to 
be  viewed  as  threatening  portents  in  the  pathway  of 
truth.  The  intellect  does  not  save,  nor  can  it  de- 
stroy. The  work  of  the  Spirit  is  made  effectual  in 
another  way.  When  the  intellect  is  most  clouded 
and  bewildered,  the  heart  is  often  most  open  to  its 
persuasive  voice.  Mere  logical  quibbles  are  forgot- 
ten when  the  soul  is  once  brought  to  hunger  and 
thirst  for  the  living  God.  "  Lead  me  to  the  Rock 
that  is  higher  than  I ! "  is  its  despairing  cry,  when  it 
sits  comfortless  amid  the  ashes  of  its  empty  specula- 
tions. In  its  secret  depths  it  yearns  for  communion 
with  the  invisible  world  ;  it  instinctively  reaches  out 
for  a  hope  that  goes  beyond  the  rule  of  time  and 
sense ;  and  at  such  times  the  Comforter  comes  to  it. 
That  Comforter  comes  not  to  argue,  not  to  confute, 
not  to  relieve  from  mere  intellectual  perplexities, 
but  to  instill  a  new  life,  to  abide  in  human  souls,  to 
incarnate  itself  in  human  society  as  a  permanent 
principle  of  progress  and  growth. 

Such,  as  I  understand  it,  is  the  promise  contained 
in  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  so  much  of  joy 
and  comfort  for  each  believer,  so  much  of  hope  and 
confidence  for  the  whole  body.  The  disciples  to 
whom  this  promise  was  spoken  did  not  understand 
it.  To  their  dull  minds  it  seemed  connected  with 
old  predictions  of  times  and  seasons.  The  church 
has  never  fully  understood  it.  In  every  age  it  has 
shown  itself  hard  of  heart  and  slow  to  believe  all 
that  lay  wrapped  up  in  its  mighty  assurance.  We, 
ourselves,  to-day,  are  far  from  fully  accepting  it. 
We  are  baptized  truly  with  water,  but  how  many  of 
us,  think  you,  with  the  Holy  Ghost  ? 


396         THE  BAPTISM  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

Yet  I  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  in  the 
more  complete  understanding  and  experience  of  this 
doctrine  lies  our  hope  for  the  future  triumph  of  the 
faith.  The  church  has  had  its  period  of  external 
organization,  when  the  zeal  of  bishops  and  monks 
carried  it  with  great  external  success  ;  it  has  had 
its  period  of  doctrinal  development,  when  the  logic 
of  theologians  built  up  imposing  doctrinal  systems  ; 
yet  in  neither  of  these  periods  has  been  realized  the 
promise  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  that,  like  a  bride 
adorned  for  her  husband,  she  shall  one  day  come 
down  from  God  out  of  heaven.  She  waits  for  that 
fuller  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  which  shall  witness 
itself  in  far  greater  works  than  these. 

Meanwhile,  for  each  of  us  as  individuals,  the 
pressing  question  presented  by  the  text  is  whether 
we  are  waiting  to  have  the  last  prayer  of  Christ  for 
his  disciples  fulfilled.  Remembering  the  words  He 
spoke  when  on  earth,  do  we  receive  them  with  hum- 
ble and  obedient  hearts  ?  Do  we  seek,  by  daily  self- 
sacrifice  and  self-surrender,  to  hold  ourselves  open 
to  the  impulses  of  that  Spirit,  which,  by  causing  us 
all  to  abide  in  the  Son,  can  alone  make  the  world 
believe  that  the  Father  has  sent  Him  ?  For  the 
promise  is  to  us  and  to  our  children,  Ye  shall  re- 
ceive the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost ! 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    HEAVEN    AND 
THE    KINGDOM   OF   NATURE.1 


Another  parable  put  He  forth  unto  them,  saying,  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  which  a  man  took  and 
sowed  in  his  field.  —  Matthew  xiii.  31. 

The  immediate  purpose  of  this  parable  was  to 
set  forth  the  striking  contrast  between  the  small 
beginnings  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  its  mar- 
velous growth  ;  but,  like  all  the  parables,  it  con- 
veys another  lesson, — a  lesson  lying  beyond  its 
immediate  aim,  —  and  it  is  for  this  that  I  have  se- 
lected it  as  the  text.  By  the  phrase  "kingdom  of 
heaven,"  which  our  Lord  so  often  uses,  is  intended 
that  higher  system  of  spiritual  laws  and  agen- 
cies first  fully  revealed  in  Him,  and  of  which  He  is 
always  represented  as  the  head.  To  disclose  the 
inner  nature  of  this  kingdom  was  the  great  purpose 
of  his  teaching.  And  in  the  significant  figure  with 
which  the  text  sets  it  forth  we  have  the  fruitful  les- 
son inculcated  that  though  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  higher  than  the  ordinary  methods  of  nature,  it 
yet  found  in  nature  its  counterpart  and  illustration. 
This  principle  is  sufficiently  familiar,  yet  it  has  some 
applications  which  at  the  present  day  may  be  prof- 
itably considered.     For  what  our  Lord  obviously  im- 

1  Written  1880. 


398     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

plies  is  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  in  the  whole 
course  of  its  development,  finds  its  counterpart  in 
natural  processes ;  that  not  alone  when  we  are  dealing 
with  the  simple  and  primary  truths  of  religion,  but 
when  we  pass  on  to  what  are  termed  the  mysteries 
of  the  faith,  to  the  truths  which  centre  in  the  life 
and  teachings  of  the  Son  of  Man,  we  may  still  trace 
this  correspondence  between  the  spiritual  and  the 
natural,  so  that  when  studying  the  deepest  aspects 
of  divine  truth  we  may  expect  to  find  its  aptest 
illustration  in  the  most  familiar  physical  phenom- 
ena, the  things  that  are  seen  remaining  our  best 
helps  for  understanding  the  things  that  are  unseen. 
Not  alone  in  these  simple  lessons  in  which  He  in- 
structed his  disciples  in  the  rudiments  of  spiritual 
life,  but  in  the  latest  instructions  which  He  left 
them  as  their  richest  legacy,  the  sayings  which  have 
remained  as  the  great  storehouse  of  spiritual  truth, 
He  follows  this  same  habit,  and  emphasizes  the  corre- 
spondence between  the  supersensuous  world  in  which 
we  walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  and  the  system 
of  natural  powers  and  forces  with  which  we  are  so 
familiar  in  our  every-day  experience.  For  the  most 
vital  contact  of  the  soul  with  its  true  life  He  can 
find  no  better  image  than  in  eating  bread  and  drink- 
ing wine,  and  He  seizes  the  vine  and  its  branches 
as  the  best  symbol  of  his  relation  to  his  followers. 
The  point  on  which  I  wish  especially  to  insist  is,  that 
this  correspondence  between  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual  is  carried  through  all  stages  and  up  to  the 
highest  line  of  spiritual  experience.  The  two  realms 
of  nature  and  of  spirit  are  not  presented  as  antag- 
onistic or  as  diverging,  but  as  harmonious,  and  as 
remaining  through  their  entire  growth  in   perfect 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.     399 

correspondence.  The  processes  of  nature  serve 
the  great  Teacher  not  simply  to  set  forth  the  sim- 
ple truths  which  belong  to  the  beginnings  of  relig- 
ious experience,  as  of  the  sower  going  forth  to  sow 
his  seed,  but  they  serve  Him  equally  to  illustrate 
the  most  advanced  and  exalted  phases  of  religious 
growth,  as  when  speaking  of  the  Bread  of  Life. 

What  this  parable  implies  is  not  simply  that  nat- 
ure, in  her  manifold  and  wonderful  processes,  exem- 
plifies those  truths  of  the  invisible  world  which  the 
natural  reason  may  reach,  but  that  nature  also  illus- 
trates and  confirms  those  laws  which  revelation  has 
brought  to  light ;  that,  in  short,  as  we  approach  what 
is  most  distinctive  and  eminent  in  the  new  dispen- 
sation, we  still  tread  a  path  which  our  common, 
every-day  observation  may  help  us  to  understand. 
And  hence  we  may  infer  that  enlarged  study  of  nat- 
ure and  of  nature's  laws,  instead  of  indisposing  us 
to  accept  the  distinctive  teachings  of  revelation,  will 
arm  those  teachings  with  new  arguments  and  lend 
them  more  convincing  force.  For  want  of  attention 
to  this  fundamental  and  pervading  characteristic 
of  our  Lord's  teaching,  the  relations  between  what 
is  termed  natural  and  revealed  truth  have  been 
strangely  misunderstood  and  confused.  They  have 
been  too  often  looked  upon  as  two  distinct  realms, 
the  methods  and  laws  of  the  one  standing  in  sharp 
contrast  with  the  methods  and  laws  of  the  other  ; 
and  with  this  misapprehension  of  their  nature  the 
conclusion  has  been  rashly  reached,  that  devotion 
to  the  one  results  in  indifference  to  the  other,  and 
that  a  mind  trained  in  the  observation  of  natural 
processes  is  prone  to  become  skeptical  with  regard 
to  spiritual  things.      It  has  been  hastily  assumed 


4CO     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

that  the  student  of  nature  deals  simply  with  phe- 
nomena, forgetful  of  the  obvious  fact  that  in  all  the 
fundamental  conceptions  which  the  student  of  nat- 
ure forms,  and  from  which  he  is  forced  to  reason, 
there  are  involved  inferences  that  go  beyond  phe- 
nomena, and  that  the  whole  proud  fabric  of  human 
knowledge  rests  at  last  upon  assumptions  which 
mere  science  is  not  competent  to  make.  There  can 
be  no  greater  mistake  than  to  suppose  that  it  is  the 
exclusive  prerogative  of  religion  to  make  its  appeal 
to  faith.  Science  enlists  the  same  faculty.  We 
exercise  faith  in  the  unseen  when  we  assume  the 
existence  of  matter  as  much  as  when  we  confess 
the  presence  of  supernatural  power.  It  has  been, 
if  I  mistake  not,  the  leading  view  of  those  who  in 
our  time  have  undertaken  to  defend  revealed  truth 
to  show  that  its  teachings  have  not  been  and  can- 
not be  contradicted  by  any  of  the  conclusions  of 
modern  science.  Thus  it  is  claimed  that  the  great 
problems  of  human  life  and  of  human  destiny  lie 
wholly  outside  of  the  limit  of  scientific  search,  that 
they  belong  to  a  sphere  which  science  cannot  enter, 
and  that  the  essential  grounds  of  religious  belief 
cannot  be  affected  by  any  legitimate  conclusions 
that  science  is  capable  of  framing.  Confined  as  she 
is  to  the  phenomena  of  nature,  Science  can  neither 
affirm  nor  deny  those  transcendental  truths  which 
lie  beyond  her  vision. 

While  I  would  by  no  means  say  that  the  distinc- 
tion here  drawn  between  science  and  religion  is  not, 
in  the  main,  a  sound  one,  and  that  some  useful  ends 
may  be  gained  by  bearing  it  in  mind,  I  still  believe 
it  to  be  a  very  incomplete  account  of  the  relation 
between  the  two.     It  is  only  half  the  truth  to  say 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.     401 

that  the  truths  of  religion  and  the  teachings  of  sci- 
ence are  distinct.  It  is  equally  true  that,  while  dis- 
tinct, they  correspond  and  are  opposite  sides  of  one 
harmonious  whole ;  so  that  it  is  not  enough  to  affirm 
that  the  conclusions  of  the  one  can  never  contradict 
the  affirmations  of  the  other ;  we  shall  fail  of  the 
whole  truth  if  we  do  not  see  that  one  is  the  coun- 
terpart of  the  other,  and  is  its  prophetic  anticipa- 
tion. The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  a  grain  of 
mustard-seed.  In  the.  interests  of  religion  it  is  high 
time  that  we  abandon  this  mere  defensive  attitude, 
and  recognize  the  fact  that  the  natural  sciences  not 
only  are  not  the  foe,  but  that  they  are  the  ally  of 
revealed  truth.  For'  the  conclusion  which  our  text 
unmistakably  warrants  us  in  drawing  is,  that  as  we 
become  more  profoundly  trained  in  the  methods  of 
nature,  instead  of  being  turned  away  from  the  teach- 
ings of  revelation,  we  shall  be  more  disposed  to  ac- 
cept them ;  that  all  we  learn  of  nature  and  her  ways 
only  qualifies  us  to  comprehend  more  clearly  the  in- 
visible ways  of  that  Spirit  which  we  are  told  finds 
its  fittest  emblem  in  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  it 
listeth.  Not  only  are  the  established  conclusions  of 
science  not  antagonistic  to  religion,  but  it  is  my  ear- 
nest conviction  that  the  distinctive  methods  of  sci- 
ence and  the  new  and  more  adequate  conception  of 
the  physical  universe  which  it  has  been  the  work  of 
modern  science  to  make  familiar  render  the  distinc- 
tive teachings  of  revelation  more  easy  of  compre- 
hension. The  deeper  movement  of  modern  science, 
whatever  may  be  said  of  some  of  the  shallower  ed- 
dies, has  been  in  the  direction  of  spiritual  truth,  and 
the  fundamental  conceptions  on  which  science  now 
insists,  the  conceptions  which  give  to  modern  sci- 
26 


402     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

ence  its  characteristic  tone,  are  conceptions  in  strik- 
ing analogy  with  the  deeper  teachings  of  the  gospel. 

Let  us  look  at  this  more  closely.  In  the  first 
place,  the  conclusions  of  science  must  incline  us  to 
accept  the  great  primary  fact  of  a  revelation  itself. 
I  know  it  has  been  hastily  assumed  that  the  reverse 
of  this  is  true,  and  that  the  rigorous  methods  of 
science  leave  no  room  for  revealed  truth.  But  the 
last  result  of  science  is  the  recognition  of  the  great 
law  which  the  text  so  impressively  sets  forth,  that 
all  things  are  parts  of  a  great  process  of  growth. 
Of  this  process  man  is  not  only  a  part,  but  is  the 
crowning  result.  Hence  human  nature  is  a  fact, 
—  a  fact  as  real,  a  fact  as  indubitable,  as  any  that 
can  claim  our  attention.  Man  is,  in  truth,  the  su- 
preme fact  that  nature  presents.  No  matter  how 
he  began  his  career,  —  no  matter  how  extreme  the 
hypothesis  we  adopt  to  explain  his  origin.  We  may 
trace,  if  you  wish,  not  only  his  physical,  but  also  his 
intellectual  and  even  his  moral  being  through  a  pro- 
cess of  evolution  reaching  back  to  the  fiery  cloud 
which,  we  are  told,  was  once  the  sole  thing  floating 
in  space ;  still  man,  with  his  present  endowments 
and  attributes  and  yearnings,  remains  just  as  much 
a  fact,  and  just  as  much  the  last  supreme  result 
which  the  creation  has  brought  forth.  He  is  the 
marvelous  man-child  ;  in  him  the  whole  effort  of 
nature  is  summed  up.  Our  highest  inferences  from 
nature  must  be  drawn  from  his  constitution,  and 
from  his  convictions  and  beliefs. 

Now  no  one  can  deny  that  the  most  characteristic 
thing  in  man  is  his  appetency  for  the  spiritual  and 
the  unseen.  Creature  of  time  and  sense,  he  is  per- 
petually driven  by  the  inexorable  needs  of  his  own 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    403 

nature  to  overleap  these  barriers.  With  large  dis- 
course of  reason,  and  looking  before  and  after,  he 
longs  to  lift  the  veil  and  solve  the  haunting  mystery 
of  life  and  death.  But,  according  to  science,  such  a 
being  as  man  can  only  be  explained  as  the  result  of 
a  process  of  development. 

Yet  evolution  becomes  a  rational  hypothesis  only 
when  we  connect  with  it  the  idea  of  purpose ;  nor 
can  we  conceive  of  orderly  and  progressive  evolu- 
tion without  a  directing  Intelligence  behind  it.  .So 
that  man,  with  his  marvelous  appetencies,  must  be 
regarded  as  created  for  a  purpose,  and  that  purpose 
can  be  nothing  less  than  communion  with  something 
above  himself.  Thus  the  very  constitution  of  man 
renders  a  revelation  in  the  highest  degree  probable. 
Revelation  is,  in  fact,  a  postulate  of  human  nature, 
when  we  use  the  term  in  any  large  and  adequate 
sense.  All  experience  shows  that  man  is  never  sat- 
isfied with  his  present  surroundings.  He  instinct- 
ively puts  himself  the  question,  Whence  am  I,  and 
whither  shall  I  go  ?  Hemmed  in  with  mysteries 
which  he  longs  to  pierce,  he  utters  the  cry,  "  If  a 
man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  "  He  is  as  distinctively 
a  religious  as  he  is  a  social  animal,  and  by  the  whole 
make  and  strain  of  his  being  he  is  forced  to  mur- 
mur, "  Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  highei  than  I." 
Thus  human  nature,  in  the  course  of  a  strictly  nat- 
ural development,  and  as  a  result  of  that  develop- 
ment, reaches  at  last  a  stage  where  it  cannot  be  con- 
tent with  the  conditions  of  its  existence  ;  when,  like 
a  child  that  has  come  to  man's  estate,  it  is  no  longer 
pleased  with  childish  things,  but  demands  a  new  en- 
vironment, and  yearns  for  a  fuller  knowledge,  and  is 
haunted  with  the  larger  problems  that  stretch  out 


404    KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

before  it.  To  borrow  the  image  of  the  text,  the 
grain  of  mustard-seed  has  become  the  greatest 
among  herbs. 

Now  if  we  consider  what  science  claims,  —  that  the 
human  soul  has  been  brought  to  this  ample  growth 
by  a  normal  development ;  that  these  yearnings,  in- 
stincts, appetencies,  whatever  they  may  be  called, 
are  inseparable  from  the  advanced  stage  of  prog- 
ress which  man  has  reached  ;  that  they  are  the 
necessary  consequence  of  a  process  of  moral  and 
spiritual  evolution,  no  matter  at  what  point  that 
process  began,  or  by  what  agencies  it  has  been  car- 
ried on,  —  then  I  claim  that  the  accepted  teachings 
of  science  warrant  the  inference  that  these  new 
wants  and  these  new  capacities  will  be  provided  for 
by  some  new  modification  of  the  conditions  of  its 
existence.  Such  correlation  would  be  in  strict  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  evolution  as  it  has  been 
formulated  by  modern  science.  It  would  be  simply 
carrying  out  the  principle  that  the  inner  growth  and 
the  external  environment  must  correspond  ;  and 
hence  a  revelation  of  spiritual  truth  to  waiting,  ex- 
pecting, yearning  man  would  be  the  most  complete, 
the  most  impressive,  the  most  beautiful,  illustration 
ever  given  of  this  law. 

And  if,  in  answer  to  this,  it  should  be  urged  that 
revelation,  if  we  regard  it  thus  as  a  continuation  of 
a  great  system  of  development,  reaching  back  to  the 
very  beginning  of  things,  should  itself  bear  the  marks 
of  progress,  I  reply  without  hesitation  that  such  is 
undoubtedly  the  fact.  We  have  only  to  revert  to 
history  to  see  it.  If  we  glance  especially  at  that 
revelation  which  asserts  itself  as  the  supreme  com- 
munication to  man  from  the  spiritual  world,  we  find 


KINGDOMS  OF  HEA  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    405 

it  marked  by  nothing  more  indubitably  than  by  this 
very  characteristic  of  progressive  adaptation  both  to 
human  capacities  and  to  human  wants.  First  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear,  — 
this  is  the  unmistakable  note  of  revelation  from  the 
hour  when  waiting  patriarchs  wrestled  with  one 
whom  they  did  not  see,  on  to  the  full-orbed  day 
when  man  was  taught  the  great  lesson  that  he  was 
a  son  of  God.  Both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
are  vocal  with  this  truth.  And  nothing  in  the  New 
is  more  marked  and  more  significant  than  the  con- 
stant assertion  of  the  organic  connection  between 
the  earliest  simple  communications  and  the  final 
complete  manifestation.  It  has  passed  into  a  maxim 
that  what  was  hid  in  the  Old  Testament  was  brought 
to  light  in  the  New,  and  that  lawgivers,  prophets, 
and  apostles,  how  dimly  soever  they  may  have  rec- 
ognized the  fact,  were  engaged  in  one  great  work, 
and  were  the  ministers  of  one  organic,  ever-advan- 
cing revelation.  In  apostolic  phrase,  they  all  drank 
of  one  spiritual  Rock. 

In  a  natural  desire  to  emphasize  the  claims  of 
revelation  it  has  been  too  much  the  habit  to  draw  a 
sharp  line  of  distinction  between  natural  and  re- 
vealed religion,  and  to  represent  the  latter  as  some- 
thing in  its  nature  exceptional  and  out  of  the  com- 
mon course.  Thus  the  argument  from  miracles  has 
been  assigned  a  wholly  disproportioned  prominence 
among  Christian  evidences.  Such  reasoning  is  of 
precisely  the  same  kind  as  that  which  leads  a  sav- 
age to  see  more  evident  tokens  of  the  iivine  pres- 
ence in  an  eclipse  than  in  the  orderly  sequence  of 
sunrise  and  sunset.  But  a  better  instructed  eye 
views  in  a  creation  controlled  by  uniform  law,  in  the 


406     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

harmonious  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  in 
the  unfailing  succession  of  seed-time  and  harvest, 
the  most  convincing  proof  of  the  existence  of  an 
Intelligent  Cause.  He  is  most  conscious  of  the 
presence  of  God,  not  in  the  earthquake  nor  in  the 
whirlwind,  but  in  the  still  voice  that  day  utters  to 
day,  and  in  the  silence  of  night. 

So  the  most  convincing  proof  of  the  truth  of  any 
revelation  is  to  be  found  not  in  the  fact  that  it 
stands  apart  from  nature,  still  less  in  the  fact  that 
it  seemingly  contradicts  or  suspends  any  of  nature's 
laws,  but  far  more  in  the  fact  that  it  corresponds 
with  nature,  and  that,  while  going  beyond  it,  while 
disclosing  truths  which  nature  does  not  even  sug- 
gest, it  yet,  in  its  supreme  utterances,  conforms  to 
the  analogy  of  nature,  and  follows  the  method  which 
nature  in  a  lower  sphere  has  always  adhered  to. 
Thus  is  it,  and  thus  only,  that  revelation  carries 
with  it  the  irresistible  conviction  that  the  truths  of 
nature  and  the  truths  of  revelation  have  proceeded 
from  the  same  source,  and  illustrate  one  system  of 
things. 

In  the  very  idea  of  revelation  as  the  communica- 
tion not  only  of  new  truth,  but  of  truth  above  the 
ordinary  level  of  human  faculties,  there  is  involved 
not  only  the  possibility  but  the  anterior  probability 
that  it  would  be  accompanied  with  unusual  phenom- 
ena. These  phenomena  would  be,  however,  not  so 
much  an  essential  part  of  the  revelation  as  its  inci- 
dental concomitant.  They  would  serve  not  so  much 
to  demonstrate  its  truth  to  those  disposed  to  doubt 
or  reject  it  as  to  confirm  its  truth  to  such  as  were 
already  inclined  to  accept  it.  They  would  have  no 
convincing  power  where  faith  was  not  already  pres- 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    407 

ent.  To  unbelief  they  would  seem  simply  the  works 
of  one  having  a  devil. 

But  we  may  go  still  further ;  for,  in  the  second 
place,  not  only  do  the  conceptions  rendered  familiar 
by  modern  science  prepare  us  to  accept  the  idea  of 
revelation  as  part  of  the  general  and  orderly  system 
of  things,  they  also  render  more  credible  and  more 
intelligible  what  is  most  distinctive  in  Christian 
revelation,  the  doctrine  of  the  manifestation  of  the 
divine  life  in  human  form.  In  this  doctrine,  when 
understood  in  all  that  it  implies,  we  have  that  which 
gives  Christianity  its  peculiar  stamp,  and  what  I 
now  claim  is  that  the  conclusions  of  modern  science 
are  in  striking  correspondence  with  this  central 
truth. 

I  have  just  referred  to  miracles  as  an  incidental 
part  of  revelation.  But  in  the  record  of  revelation 
the  greatest  of  all  miracles  is  the  Son  of  Man  him- 
self. Nothing  in  the  mighty  works  which  no  other 
man  did,  nothing  in  the  marvelous  words  which 
moved  his  hearers  to  cry  out  that  never  man  spake 
like  this  man,  was  after  all  so  wonderful  and  so  im- 
pressive as  the  person  behind  them.  We  instinct- 
ively recognize  a  reserved  strength,  an  unexhausted 
depth  of  being,  that  is  more  impressive  than  any 
uttered  truths  or  any  mighty  deeds.  The  simple 
life  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus  remains  the  most  sig- 
nal fact  that  the  four  Gospels  present. 

The  more  closely  and  dispassionately  we  study 
his  career,  the  more  deeply  shall  we  be  convinced 
of  this.  I  do  not  refer  to  Him  in  any  of  the  mere 
dogmatic  or  ecclesiastical  aspects  in  which  He  is 
usually  presented,  and  in  which  the  most  significant 
features  of  his  character  are  so  often  obscured,  but 


4<d8   kingdoms  of  he  a  ven  and  of  na  ture. 

I  refer  to  Him  simply  as  an  authentic  fact  of  his- 
tory. Whatever  interpretation  we  may  put  upon 
Him,  whatever  degree  of  obedience  we  may  choose 
to  accord  to  Him,  respecting  his  purely  historical 
career,  and  his  actual  relation  to  the  course  of  man's 
spiritual  development,  there  is  no  room  for  dispute. 

The  most  obdurate  skeptic  must  recognize  Him 
as  the  most  significant  figure  which  human  history 
presents.  In  Him  beyond  all  question  centres  the 
most  marvelous  revolution  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
which  the  human  race  has  had  any  experience,  and 
to  Him  as  their  source  and  fountain  head  reach  back 
the  most  commanding  impulses  that  shape  modern 
civilization. 

Yet  what  must  strike  us  most  forcibly,  as  we  study 
this  unique  career,  is  its  perfect  simplicity  and  nat- 
uralness. Asserting  himself  as  a  manifestation  in 
human  life  of  the  divine  nature,  Jesus  was  the  most 
intensely  human  of  all  religious  teachers.  Separate 
from  men  in  the  sinless  purity  of  his  life,  He  drew 
the  outcast  and  the  contemned  and  the  forsaken  to 
Him  with  a  might  as  irresistible  as  it  was  gentle 
and  mild.  He  entered  into  the  hidden  springs  of 
human  life,  and  touched  its  sympathies  and  kindled 
its  hopes  and  drew  forth  its  confidence  and  love  as 
could  only  be  done  by  one  who  was  in  all  respects 
himself  a  partaker  of  human  nature.  He  taught 
transcendent  truths,  truths  that  the  heart  of  man 
had  never  conceived ;  but  He  uttered  these  truths  in 
words  that  were  heard  gladly  by  common  people, 
and  loved  to  set  them  forth  in  parables  and  illustra- 
tions drawn  from  the  most  familiar  incidents  of  life. 
He  did  mighty  works,  He  healed  the  blind,  He 
raised  the  dead,  but  He  constantly  declared  that  bet- 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    409 

ter  and  greater  than  these  wonders  was  the  practice 
of  the  common  duties  we  owe  to  one  another. 

In  further  illustration  of  this  let  us  not  omit  to 
note  the  significant  declarations  which  Jesus  makes 
respecting  himself.  At  the  beginning  of  his  min- 
istry He  speaks  with  the  authority  of  a  master.  He 
calls  on  his  hearers  to  give  up  all  that  they  have  to 
follow  Him,  and  He  calls  with  a  tone  that  they  are 
constrained  to  recognize  and  obey.  His  relation  to 
them  is  external ;  He  stands  above  them  as  their 
Lord  and  King.  So  filled  are  they  with  the  sense 
of  his  supremacy  that  they  cast  their  garments  in 
the  way  as  they  see  Him  coming.  To  them  He  is 
heir  of  the  throne  of  David ;  with  eager  faith  they 
view  the  near  return  of  the  regal  rule  and  splendor 
of  the  former  kingdom.  But  when,  at  the  close  of 
his  career,  He  leads  his  disciples  to  the  deepest  and 
truest  and  tenderest  revelation  of  himself,  his  rela- 
tion to  them  is  no  longer  represented  as  something 
external  and  official,  but  as  internal  and  personal. 
In  that  wonderful  discourse  in  which  He  set  forth 
most  adequately  the  true  nature  of  his  spiritual 
kingdom,  He  describes  himself  under  the  most  sim- 
ple analogies.  He  is  the  true  vine,  of  which  they 
are  the  branches  ;  He  is  the  living  bread,  which  is 
given  for  them  ;  He  is  no  longer  a  mere  teacher, 
conveying  formal  instruction,  but  his  life  is  blended 
mysteriously  with  theirs ;  He  abides  in  them,  and 
they  must  abide  in  Him. 

Now  who  can  fail  to  notice,  in  all  this,  the  strik- 
ing analogy  between  these  highest  teachings  of  Je- 
sus and  some  of  the  latest  results  of  our  study  of 
the  natural  world.  As  physical  science  has  brought 
us  to  the  conclusion  that  back  of  all  the  phenomena 
SJ 


4IO     KINGDOMS  OF  HEAVEN  AND  OF  NATURE. 

of  the  natural  universe  there  lies  veiled  an  invisible 
universe  of  forces,  and  that  these  forces  may  ulti- 
mately be  reduced  to  one  pervading  force,  in  which 
the  essential  unity  of  the  physical  universe  consists, 
and  as  philosophy  has  further  advanced  the  rational 
conjecture  that  this  ultimate  all-pervading  force  is 
simply  will,  so  the  great  Teacher  holds  up  before 
us  the  spiritual  world  as  a  system  in  the  same  way 
pervaded  by  one  life, — a  life  revealed  in  Him  as 
its  highest  human  manifestation,  but  meant  to  be 
shared  by  all  those  who,  by  faith,  become  partakers 
of  his  nature.  When,  therefore,  we  are  told  that  the 
Word,  by  whom  all  things  were  created,  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  —  in  other  words,  that  the 
eternal  reason  by  which  the  creation  from  the  be- 
ginning had  been  shaped,  in  the  fullness  of  time 
allied  itself  with  human  intelligence  and  with  human 
will,  —  we  are  not  only  told  nothing  that  science 
contradicts,  but  we  have  hinted  to  us  a  law  of  the 
spiritual  world  which  the  laws  of  the  natural  world 
confirm,  and  with  which  all  the  last  conclusions  of 
science  stand  up  in  striking  and  convincing  parallel. 
When,  in  fact,  we  separate  Christianity  from  its 
more  external  circumstances,  when  we  strip  it  of 
the  dress  it  wears  as  related  to  a  particular  age  and 
social  state,  and  look  at  it  in  its  deeper  meaning, 
nothing  about  it  will  seem  more  striking  than  the 
feature  of  which  I  speak.  It  is  a  larger  and  fuller 
illustration  of  what  nature  everywhere  shows.  For 
not  only  does  nature,  looked  at  in  the  largest  sense 
as  including  man,  render  antecedently  probable  the 
fact  of  a  revelation,  not  only  does  all  that  it  reveals 
of  man's  spiritual  aptitudes  and  wants  prepare  us  to 
anticipate  the  time  when  the  human  soul  shall  be 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    4 1 1 

brought  into  some  closer  communion  with  the  invis- 
ible world,  but  all  that  we  learn  of  the  precise  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  of  its  progressive  evolution,  of  the 
presence  of  an  all-pervading  force  shaping  its  phe- 
nomena, still  further  prepares  us  for  a  revelation, 
which,  like  that  brought  by  the  Son  of  Man,  is  not 
a  mere  system  of  external  laws  and  ordinances,  not 
a  written  code,  but  an  inner  spiritual  power,  dwell- 
ing in  man  and  operating  through  the  human  will. 

The  last  and  highest  conclusion  to  which  the  re- 
searches of  physical  science  have  brought  us  is  that 
of  a  power  behind  nature,  making  itself  manifest 
through  all  natural  phenomena.  The  highest,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  simplest,  aspect  in  which  Chris- 
tianity is  revealed  is  that  of  a  spiritual  force  reveal- 
ing itself  in  human  souls. 

That  stupendous  fact  which  we  term  the  Incarna- 
tion meant  no  more  than  this.  It  was  the  dwelling 
in  human  nature  of  a  divine  life  and  power,  the  lift- 
ing of  the  human  race  to  a  higher  level  of  spiritual 
experience  and  action.  When  Jesus  chose  for  his 
most  habitual  designation  of  himself  the  title  of 
''  Son  of  Man,"  He  hinted  this  great  analogy  be- 
tween the  natural  and  the  spiritual.  For  as  Son 
of  Man  He  expressed  and  illustrated  the  crowning 
result  of  a  human  development,  since  in  Him  hu- 
manity was  first  conscious  of  its  divine  affinities. 
Even  when  asserting  his  most  intimate  relation  with 
the  Father  He  ever  described  himself  as  Son  of 
Man.  And  what  He  claimed  for  himself  He  ac- 
corded to  his  followers. 

We  are  too  much  accustomed  to  look  at  the  man- 
ifestation of  God  in  Christ  as  something  exceptional 
and  apart,  —  as  something  having  no  precedent,  nor 


4 1 2     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

analogy,  nor  hint  in  any  recognized  modes  of  the 
divine  working.  Hence,  as  often  presented,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  perplexes  human  reason. 
But  there  is  no  justification  of  such  a  view.  Not 
only  is  the  Incarnation  in  harmony  with  the  method 
of  nature,  but  in  Scripture  it  is  uniformly  repre- 
sented as  lying  within  the  natural  course  and  tend- 
ency of  things.  It  was  heralded  by  a  long  his- 
torical preparation  ;  it  is  held  up  as  the  crowning 
result  of  a  connected  series  of  social  and  political 
changes  ;  it  came  in  the  fullness  of  time.  Every- 
thing about  it  shows  that  it  was  part  of  a  purpose 
that  had  long  been  ripening,  —  the  realization,  in 
fact,  of  a  plan  formed  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world. 

While  all  this  does  not  in  the  least  detract  from 
the  dignity  and  authority  of  the  Son  of  Man,  it  sets 
Him  before  us  in  the  great  stream  of  historical  phe- 
nomena, and  presents  Him  in  his  deepest  and  truest 
aspect,  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole  system  of 
things.  Such  a  revelation  of  God  as  is  given  us  in 
Christ  is  therefore,  I  repeat,  precisely  the  kind  of 
revelation  which  the  methods  of  nature  would  lead 
us  to  expect.  It  was  a  revelation  prepared  for,  com- 
ing as  part  and  result  of  an  orderly  process,  and 
making,  when  it  came,  all  the  antecedent  steps  of 
that  process  plain.  The  Son  of  Man  did  not  sepa- 
rate himself  from  what  had  gone  before,  but  claimed 
that  He  was  the  complete  fulfillment  of  what  the 
law  and  the  prophets  had  imperfectly  taught.  And 
not  simply  in  his  own  career,  but  in  all  that  He 
taught  respecting  the  nature  of  that  spiritual  king- 
dom which  He  came  to  establish,  we  have  this  same 
truth  continually  set  forth,  that  the  natural  and  the 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.     4 1 3 

spiritual  proceed  according  to  the  same  method,  and 
illustrate  the  same  law.  Not  more  in  his  earliest 
than  in  his  latest  sayings  does  the  great  Teacher 
insist  on  this.  Whether  He  likened  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  or  described 
the  great  mystery  of  the  church  under  the  figure  of 
a  vine,  it  was  the  same  truth.  When  we  look  at 
the  external  world  we  are  everywhere  struck  with 
the  presence  of  two  great  principles  to  which  all  the 
varied  operations  of  nature  conform.  These  are  the 
law  of  unity  and  the  law  of  progress.  There  runs 
through  the  material  universe  an  organic  connec- 
tion, by  virtue  of  which  nothing  stands  apart  and 
alone,  but  all  things  are  members,  one  of  another  ; 
and  precisely  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being  this 
organic  unity  is  more  apparent.  And  not  less  strik- 
ing is  the  other  law,  by  which  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature  follow  an  orderly  succession,  and  tend  to 
rise  from  a  less  to  a  more  perfect  state.  As  a  rule, 
each  stage  of  inorganic  or  organic  being  leads  to  a 
better,  so  that  progress  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  has 
been  the  universal  law. 

Now  who  can  fail  to  note  that  in  all  that  the  Son 
of  Man  teaches  respecting  the  future  destiny  of  the 
church,  which  is  described  as  his  body,  we  have 
these  two  principles  continually  set  forth  ?  He  rep- 
resented organic  unity  as  the  fundamental  and  es- 
sential condition  of  the  new  dispensation.  This 
unity  He  set  forth  under  the  most  expressive  fig- 
ures. Not  only  was  He  the  true  vine,  but  only  as 
his  hearers  became  branches  of  Him  could  they  bear 
fruit.  In  other  words,  the  new  life  revealed  in  Him 
was  not  sporadic  and  individual,  having  its  source 
in  the  personal  conviction  of  each  disciple  ;  it  im- 


414     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  FEN  AND  OF  NATURE. 

plied  a  real  connection  with  Christ  as  the  head. 
From  Him  as  its  source  it  must  all  proceed. 

Furthermore,  as  nature  shows  everywhere  a  con- 
stant progress  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  so,  the 
Son  of  Man  taught,  would  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be 
governed  by  the  same  law.  As  the  new  dispensa- 
tion was  primarily  a  new  life,  in  its  very  nature  were 
involved  constant  progress  and  growth.  The  gos- 
pel of  Jesus  was  a  proclamation  of  life  ;  in  Him  was 
life,  and  the  great  aim  of  his  coming  was  that  men 
might  have  it  more  abundantly.  And  not  only  in 
the  individual,  but  in  the  larger  scope  and  move- 
ment of  history,  would  this  progress  be  illustrated. 
It  would  pervade  the  world  as  leaven  leavens  the  loaf; 
it  would  cover  the  earth  as  a  mighty  tree  spreads 
out  its  branching  arms. 

This  principle  received  its  complete  expression  in 
the  revelation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  this  doctrine, 
the  full  meaning  of  which  is  too  much  overlooked, 
we  have,  set  forth,  the  inner  and  essential  relation  of 
divine  truth  both  to  the  individual  and  to  society. 
According  to  the  last  teachings  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
his  own  personal  work  on  earth  was  meant  simply 
as  preparatory.  It  was  only  the  door  to  a  higher 
and  permanent  dispensation.  Not  till  after  his  de- 
parture was  the  new  spiritual  power  promised  which 
should  abide  in  them  as  a  controlling  and  shaping 
force.  This  indwelling  life  and  power  would  sup- 
ply the  pervading  principle  of  unity,  by  virtue  of 
which,  though  many,  they  should  yet  always  re- 
main one.  In  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  we  have  the  harmony  of  natural  and  spiritual 
forces  most  clearly  revealed.  Here  the  methods  of 
physical  nature  and  the  methods  by  which  the  di- 


KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE.    41  5 

vme  Spirit  sways  and  illuminates  human  souls  illus- 
trate each  other.  They  are  seen  to  be  parts  of  one 
system,  and  we  recognize  the  same  power  working 
in  all  things  and  through  all  things,  and  bringing 
all  things  to  pass,  whether  we  consider  the  lilies  of 
the  field  or  study  the  more  subtle  workings  of  man's 
spiritual  nature.  These  two  revelations  lend  each 
other  an  overwhelming  support.  As  we  accept  in  its 
fullness  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  we  shall 
learn  to  look  on  all  nature  not  as  a  mass  of  inert 
matter,  but  as  everywhere  pervaded  by  a  living 
power ;  and  so,  too,  as  we  adopt  the  modern  concep- 
tions of  science  respecting  the  force  behind  phe- 
nomena to  which  life  and  organization  are  due,  we 
shall  be  disposed  to  accept  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
respecting  the  office  and  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
My  limits  allow  me  to  glance  only  in  the  most  su- 
perficial way  at  a  great  and  solemn  subject.  Of 
course  the  analogy  of  natural  and  revealed  religion 
is  an  old  and  familiar  theme.  We  have  all  of  us 
been  taught  it  in  the  pages  of  one  of  the  wisest 
masters  of  English  theology.  But  the  special  point 
on  which  I  have  been  insisting  throughout  this 
whole  discourse  is  this  :  that  the  argument  of  But- 
ler, instead  of  being  weakened,  has  been  greatly  en- 
larged and  strengthened  by  the  conclusions  of  mod- 
ern science.  From  the  obvious  course  of  natural 
phenomena  he  reasoned  to  the  more  obvious  doc- 
trines of  revelation.  What  I  claim  is  that  the  re- 
fined conceptions  of  nature  to  which  modern  sci- 
ence has  accustomed  us,  conceptions  unknown  in 
Butler's  time,  have  brought  out  in  still  more  strik- 
ing manner  the  analogy  between  the  methods  of 
nature  and  the  most  distinctive  and  spiritual  teach- 


4 1 6     KINGDOMS  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  OF  NA  TURE. 

ings  of  the  Son  of  Man.  Modern  science  rests 
throughout  on  realistic  assumptions.  It  tends  to 
recognize  in  all  nature  a  pervading  unity  ;  it  dis- 
cerns behind  phenomena  what  no  phenomena  di- 
rectly reveal  ;  it  views  the  universe  as  a  process 
which  only  an  ideal  cause  can  account  for:  and  in  all 
this,  I  confidently  assert,  there  is  a  mental  habit,  a 
mode  of  conceiving  truth,  an  attitude  of  mind  in 
harmony  with  the  disposition  that  accepts  the  high- 
est teachings  of  revelation.  Not  only  have  the  great 
postulates  of  religion  not  been  affected  by  scientific 
research,  but  science  has  brought  us  to  a  result 
where  these  postulates  assert  themselves  with  new 
force  ;  for  the  methods  of  operation  on  which  sci- 
ence now  insists,  methods  which  have  so  com- 
pletely transformed  our  notions  of  the  material 
universe,  cannot,  in  my  opinion,  be  clearly  com- 
prehended and  cordially  accepted  without  disposing 
a  fair  and  thoughtful  mind  to  accept  that  fuller 
truth  of  which  the  church  is  the  pillar  and  ground. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard-seed which  a  man  took  and  sowed  in  his  field. 
Let  us  learn  from  this  lesson  of  the  great  Teacher 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  study  of  nature  that  can 
turn  us  away  from  revealed  truth.  On  the  contrary, 
the  more  patiently  and  reverently  we  explore  the 
processes  of  nature,  the  more  devoutly  shall  we  bow 
before  that  wisdom  which  cometh  from  above.  The 
advance  of  scientific  knowledge  has  already  modified, 
and  will  continue  to  modify,  many  notions  which 
men  have  entertained  respecting  God  and  his  works, 
but  it  can  never  shake  the  strong  foundations  of 
that  catholic  faith  which  is  the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day, and  forever. 


